See You on the Flipside: Follow Me
by Rollerwings
Summary: Now 45 and perpetually mired in minimum-wage work, Mike Schmidt never came remotely close to setting the world on fire. Knowing far more now than he did back then, he's sitting in a sham of a security office, playing the role of the very job title he held for all of a week. He's got a lighter in his hand and an ally from the flip side. Burn, baby, burn.
1. Like a Ton of Bricks

**Rating: T **for graphic violence and gore, mild swearing, perilous situations, psychological trauma, brief mention of alcohol and drug use, depressive themes

**Setting: **Fazbear's Fright: The Horror Attraction, during the events of the third game

**Summary: **Now 45 and perpetually mired in minimum-wage work, Mike Schmidt never came remotely close to setting the world on fire. Knowing far more now than he did back then, he's sitting in a sham of a security office, playing the role of the very job title he held for all of a week. He's got a lighter in his hand and an ally from the flip side. Burn, baby, burn.

**Author's Note: **The _Five Nights at Freddy's _games and all canon characters, settings, etc. are the property of Scott Cawthon. This is a non-commercial fan tribute and was not written for profit.

You are free to use any original concepts, headcanons and characters from this fanfiction in your own work (fanfiction, art, etc.) if you'd like.

This contains FNaF3 spoilers, of course. Please note that this fanfic was written after the third game's release and that the author still has an ongoing 'fic based on the first game (slowpoke, much?) and the expanding canon of the second and third games has retconned much of that story. Thus, this one won't spoil the original planned ending to the first 'fic, in fact, it's quite different! The characters' personalities are much the same from the first story but other plot elements have changed.

Views expressed in this fanfiction do not necessarily match the writer's.

* * *

It hit him like a ton of bricks, just being back in the old place after five hard years and having come full circle. Mike Schmidt had long held onto the magical belief that after his former boss had turned the key in the lock the last time, forever abandoning his final, failed business venture, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza had somehow remained in pristine condition, undisturbed and waiting for the eventual day when a new owner might allow another generation of children to rediscover the magical and happy memories.

That day had never come and it sure wasn't going to now. Reality had proved itself a cold, hard slap in the face, and the elements were slowly reclaiming the derelict building where Mike had once worked for all of a week, evidenced by the waterlogged ceiling tiles and the green and black mold that had hungrily consumed everything it could cling to. Amidst all the detritus of the pizza palace that had once been the happiest destination of all time for local children, Mike dropped to his knees and clamped a palm to his forehead, his senses overwhelmed.

"Hey, you okay? Could I get you a cup of water or something?" asked the site supervisor who had been charged with overseeing the work crew. Filled with genuine concern, he knelt alongside his stricken employee, who was now cursing softly under his breath, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Naw, I'll live, Harry. I...I guess the mildew in here just got to me. This place really went to seed, didn't it?" Mike abruptly rose to his feet, trying to prove his resolve to continue working alongside the other men, most of them young enough to be his sons. As part of a day labor crew, he hadn't bargained for this when he'd been asked to assist on a "moving job." He had never expected to end up..._here, _again.

"And how! It sure didn't help that kids broke in over the years and trashed everything that wasn't nailed down," muttered the supervisor, kicking an outdated yet full beer can across the dining area. It clattered over the floor tiles, coming to rest at the base of the empty show stage. "That young guy who bought the contents of these restaurants at the auction..." Harry's voice trailed off and he laughed. "I think he was counting on finding a _lot_ more than this still around. We'll be lucky to fill a single moving truck; most of this is unsalvageable by any means. It was just his dumb luck, though, and he should've had the good sense to inspect the goods before he bought 'em."

"You're telling me," Mike replied, coughing hard behind the dust mask he wore over his mouth and nose. He slid his plastic safety goggles back over his eyes, which contained a steely glint of determination. "Don't keep me in the dark, though, what's he planning for all this stuff?"

Harry shook his head in disapproval. "You didn't hear this from me, but if you can keep a secret, the buyer's a scion of the family that owns Krayzee Action Park, just over the state line. I guess he finally wanted to impress his old man by designing his own spookhouse attraction for the park, so he bummed some dough off him and bought a bunch of old trailers and welded them together or something. He's going with a 'haunted pizzeria' theme and that's why he wants all this decrepit crap. I learned of his plans when he called the office requesting workers to gut the old restaurants, and I might add he was high as a kite at the time."

"That's super _sick," _Mike sighed, his stomach twisting at the mere thought. "Didn't it ever dawn on him that kids _died_ here?" He felt a pang in his heart. "And a security guard."

Harry nodded. "I agree, it's the ultimate in poor taste to try and make a buck off someone's tragedy." He prodded a ceiling fan, its wooden blades drooping like the petals of a wilted daisy. "Never heard about the security guy, though."

Mike bowed his head reverently, staring down at tiles that had lifted up from the floor. _It seems not too many people did._ Clyde Miller had died doing what he loved, but his death had gone mostly unnoticed. In the eyes of law enforcement, he officially remained a missing person, a low-wage employee who had never gotten over a demotion at work and had been under a lot of stress, and had walked out on his unsatisfying life to start anew, case closed and no foul play suspected. Mike knew otherwise, but nobody had believed him.

"Oh, and don't forget the guy who got part of his head gnawed off by one of the robots! Bet he'd be _real_ cheesed off to hear about this spookhouse," Harry added.

Mike regarded him sharply. "Yeah, Jeremy's actually a friend of mine. I didn't know him at the time he got hurt, though. I met him later, and he didn't get anything 'gnawed off,' exactly. He suffered a brain injury when an animatronic malfunctioned and bit him, but the amazing thing is, his mind more or less rewired itself and he's made a great comeback. I still see him around every now and then."

"Oh. I-I'm really sorry, man. I didn't know that, it's just one of those things you hear about, you know? Glad to hear he's doing better," Harry apologized. "Ugh, I feel like putting my foot in my mouth right about now."

"Don't," Mike said, grinning to show him all was forgiven, "you'd just get a mouthful of mold. We're practically wading through the stuff."

"Yeah, and we'd better get back to work already," the supervisor said matter-of-factly, pulling a list from his pocket and consulting it. "There's some wooden pizza decorations on the walls near the restrooms, they want those. Have at it, try and see if you can get 'em off in one piece." He passed a crowbar to Mike. "After that, take a wheelbarrow and move out the old animatronics. Those trespassers smashed them up good; they're just laying there in pieces in the same hall. You round 'em up and we'll leave it to our young entrepreneur to decide if there's anything worth salvaging out of the lot. Oh, and the restrooms have been boarded up, so I'm assuming they don't want the toilets, haha." Excusing himself to check on the progress made by the other workers, he left Mike to his tasks.

* * *

Just as he'd been told, the four characters who had made such efforts to kill him during his brief employment at Freddy's were now utterly ripped apart, their remnants strewn around the floor. Finally standing triumphantly over the remains of his former tormentors, Mike looked ruefully down at the crowbar in his hands.

_"Too bad_ those kids beat me to it or I would've torn into you myself!" he snarled. The memories of his persistent attackers had never been far from his mind, and he had long assumed that after the pizzeria had closed, the characters had eventually run out of power and their servos had ground to a halt, locking up and ending their wandering days forever. Considering the location's power woes, it probably hadn't taken long. His recurrent nightmares had even driven him to show up one night outside the shuttered pizzeria, flashlight in hand, to peer inside just to reassure himself they had really shut down once and for all. That attempt to investigate hadn't ended well, leaving him with charges of loitering and prowling added to his record.

Dropping to one knee, Mike lifted Freddy's headpiece, staring into the vacant and soulless eye sockets of the mask, the same ones his own eyes would have been forced through if the bear or his companions had ever succeeded in their quest to destroy him. He sensed he should have been finding his long-awaited sense of closure at this moment, but he wasn't feeling the peace he sought, not when virtually everything around him was being moved to a macabre horror attraction.

Sighing, he tossed the headpiece in the wheelbarrow and began gathering up the ripped tufts of acrylic plush from the shredded costumes, hissing in sudden pain. Bringing his hand to his face, he discovered a slash across his palm, and glared down at the culprit.

"Dammit, Foxy," he growled, seeing a glint of blood on one of the pirate character's many exposed teeth. "Even beyond the grave, you got me." Carelessly wiping his hand across his jeans, he gave the headpiece a sharp kick, feeling a little better as it thumped against the far wall, which had been haphazardly covered with particle board for as long as he could remember, a shoddy example of workmanship at best.

_Huh, I always wondered what was behind that. _Acting impulsively as he had a tendency to do, Mike returned to the main hall and retrieved a sledgehammer from the tool supply, and was soon back at the mysterious wall. He attributed the absolute chill that suddenly overcame him to hesitation.

_Mike, NO! You'll let him come back. He always does._

* * *

"You're going to get me in trouble doing that!" Harry had suddenly reappeared, reprimanding him with a hand outstretched for the hammer. "Just _think_ first, okay? We're not a demolition crew and I don't want to get blamed for any more damage to this place."

"Fine, but what do you suppose is back there?" Mike asked, jabbing a finger at the door and inwardly scolding himself. His boss was right; the last thing he needed was to be slapped with yet another criminal mischief charge.

"I dunno, maybe a third restroom? Harry shrugged dismissively. "Who cares, but I think I'd better take over here. We'll reassign you to another job that doesn't require the use of tools capable of massive destruction. Go to the security office and clear out everything. They want it _all_, that's what the list says, anyway."

Dread clouded Mike's mind, almost immediately replaced by fury. It was bad enough that someone was planning to profit off a serial killer's legacy, now they were going to capitalize on the grim fate of the only one who had made any real effort to help him survive his week at Freddy's.

* * *

The office hadn't escaped the deterioration that plagued the rest of the building, and the former security guard smiled wistfully, resting a hand on the rusty but cool metal of the desk fan. It was all still here, just as he'd left it. This was where he had tried so hard but in vain to prove himself, taking risks that bordered on insanity, only to learn the restaurant was closing and he was being fired. He often felt very little in his life had gone right since.

_This place has been responsible for destroying so many lives when it was supposed to be a fun paradise for kids; _why_ would anyone in his right mind want to bring it back?_ Mike jumped when a figure appeared at the door, flashbacks of the animatronics having done exactly the same flashing through his mind.

"Sorry, Mike. Are you _sure_ you're okay? When you stormed off I realized I might have been a little harsh on ya." Harry scratched his head, leaning against the doorframe. "Besides, how _did _you know exactly where to find this room? I didn't even get a chance to tell you where it was and you came right here. You just made a total beeline for this office, like you knew something all along that I don't."

"Lucky guess, I suppose." _Luck had nothing to do with it, nothing but bad luck, anyway._ The former guard had never told anyone about his failed employment at the pizzeria, preferring to hide his brief association with that accursed place. He only wished he could just as easily bury his own memories and deny the whole thing had ever happened.

* * *

_Author's Note: This chapter was in no way putting down day labor workers or those who earn minimum wage. There is absolutely no shame in honest work. Been there/still there myself, just sayin'. ;)_


	2. Multiple and Simultaneous Failures

_July 1980_

"Heeeeyyyy, kids, it's been a really swell sing-along show, but it's about time for Fredbear and I to take our afternoon naps, and I think I hear the school buses outside, ready to take you back to your summer camp for even _more_ fun!" drawled Spring Bonnie, cavorting around the show stage at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza with a series of hops, the enthusiastic cheering of children almost drowning out his words. "So long and goodbye, everyone, and I hope to see you back real soon! In fact, see Fredbear on your way out, because he has a special surprise for each of you: your very own coupon for half-off admission on your next visit. So stop in again and bring along your whole family!"

Behind the mask of the golden rabbit costume, Derrick carefully measured every breath he took with the precision of a deep-sea diver while reciting his lines, always cautious to avoid exhaling onto the sensitive animatronic devices spring-loaded within the suit. During the entire performance of song-and-dance numbers, his face had been twisted into a sneer that contrasted sharply with the happy and cheerful visage of the character whose persona he had taken on, for secretly he held nothing but contempt for his young audience.

He _loathed_ the kids, hated their impatience and their boundless, undirected energy and their very presence in the restaurant, and had only taken on the role of Spring Bonnie because he had desperately needed to take a second job. Working as a performer paid far better than any other position at the pizzeria, so long as one was willing to accept the risks that came with wearing the complicated hybrid costumes.

"Just kill me now," he hissed to his fellow performer who was kneeling at the edge of the stage handing out the discount coupons, certain she was doing her characteristic eyeroll behind the mask of the Fredbear costume in response. As if on cue, a child clambered onto the stage, his camp t-shirt flapping behind him as he rushed at Derrick, arms outstretched and ready to embrace his favorite character.

"Spring Bonnie, I don't _want_ to leave you!"

"No, kid, get back!" Realizing all too late what was about to happen, Derrick's desperate warning went unheeded as the determined child evaded Fredbear's attempt to snatch him up and away from his new idol.

* * *

A Datsun hatchback squealed to a halt outside Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, swerving askew into two parking spots. The driver scarcely noticed, scrambling out through the perpetually-open driver's side window since the door had jammed long ago after a minor collision, and sprinted toward the restaurant, clutching a company-issued clipboard in one hand.

It was immediately evident that something had gone horribly wrong at the pizzeria's first satellite location; the young campers and their counselors were leaving in droves toward their school buses, many still wearing festive party hats that clashed sharply with their pallid faces and shaken demeanor. Darting through the crowd, he was met at the front door by the restaurant's manager.

"Clyde, thank goodness you're here, but I kinda thought they were going to send someone...a _little_ higher up?" Mitch paused only a moment, squinting at the training coordinator who was scarcely a year out of high school. "Never mind, I'm sure management knows what they're doing. As I said on the phone, there's been a...situation." His voice lowered ominously, leaving no doubt as to what had happened. "Safe room. Quickly." They rushed through the corridor that housed the building's restrooms, the manager filling the younger man in along the way since there were no customers remaining within earshot. "Our Spring Bonnie performer, Derrick, he's hurt. Hurt _really_ bad. The suit malfunctioned somehow and punched him through in a few places. How it didn't do him in altogether is beyond me, but he somehow managed to limp it back here and peel off the costume. Marjorie - she's our Fredbear - helped him. This is just _unreal."_

"Curse those spring suits, I _knew_ they were nothing but trouble and that something like this would happen!" Clyde exclaimed, following the trail of blood drops that led along the checkerboard-tiled floor and already imagining the graphic scene that awaited him in the back room. The small chain of children's pizza palaces he worked for, now in its second year of operation, had carried over the two headlining characters, Spring Bonnie and Fredbear, from a defunct "family diner" they had bought out, even replicating the costumes for the second restaurant in their franchise. In a frugal move, the suits had been designed to double as animatronic characters as well as mascot costumes for humans to wear and control, but they were fraught with peril. The same mechanisms that allowed the characters to move in a lifelike manner and entertain children could be withdrawn into the costume, but if the person within made any number of errors to set them off, they were capable of positively mauling him.

Clyde gingerly knelt by the injured man, who was reclining on the floor amidst more blood stains that had been hastily and only partially wiped up, one leg wrapped tightly in towels from the establishment's kitchen. Several employees surrounded him, trying their best to offer what comfort they could, and Derrick was stoicly bearing the obvious pain by holding his breath until his face had taken on a vaguely purple shade.

"Uh, hey, buddy, you're going to be just fine, okay? Breathe! We'll get you to the hospital soon enough, but for legal reasons and to take another...uh, I mean, to take _an_ accident report, I need you to tell me what happened here." His eyes strayed to the discarded rabbit costume, its acrylic fur streaked with red from Derrick's mishap, and he shared the manager's shock that anyone could have maintained the self-control to nimbly shed the suit after suffering such an excruciatingly painful episode.

Derrick's eyes locked on Clyde's with a sudden fury. "You want to know what happened? I'll _tell_ you what happened. I was doing my usual thing during the show, dancing with Fredbear, when one of those little brats rushed the stage and hugged me, only he could only reach my leg. But just the same, the pressure from that set off the springs and suddenly they fired into me." He gestured to his grieviously-injured leg. "This isn't even my only job, what am I going to do _now?"_

A young woman, barely out of her teenage years, lifted a wet towel from Derrick's discolored forehead. As a fellow performer herself, she still wore most of the Fredbear costume, having only taken the time to remove the headpiece before offering her shoulder as support to drag her coworker offstage to the back room where others could administer help.

"I'm so sorry," Clyde admitted with true concern. "I understand an ambulance has already been called, but, uh, because it's company policy, I sorta have to read off this official disclaimer before we release you from the, uh, accident scene." He anxiously flipped through the pages on his clipboard. "Right. 'Fazbear Entertainment denies any responsi-'" He gasped as he found himself tackled under the other man, who had suddenly found new strength.

_"You _listen to me," growled Derrick as everyone else stepped back involuntarily, stunned by the ferocity of his voice. "I never wanted in this line of work but I took it because I had to. Today it's ruined me every way possible, and I swear that as soon as I'm able to, I will return to this place and _utterly destroy it. _And I know _you," _he snarled, tightening his grip on Clyde, "you're that snotty voice from those training tapes; I should've known you were just a kid. You _knew _how dangerous these suits were and I promise you, someday I'll ruin you exactly the same way you ruined me."

Clyde managed to shrug himself loose from the worker who was rapidly losing strength, hearing the wail of an ambulance outside. "C'mon, guys, don't take any of that seriously. This poor man's delirious from the pain," he addressed the small crowd, following up with a nervous laugh. Ignoring the streaks of blood that now marred his own shirt, he shifted his weight and gently lowered Derrick back to the floor, resting a hand on his sweaty forearm. "You'll be alright, trust me." Lowering his voice to a whisper for the performer's benefit, he added, "I'm sorry, again. I hated the idea of those spring suits but I didn't have a choice to make the instructional tapes on how to use them. It was either that or lose my job; they were dead-set on making do with them, at least while our replacement characters are being designed and built, and thank goodness those are almost done. But for your sake, I'm going to do all I can to make sure nobody ever has to wear a Spring Bonnie costume again. You have my word on it."

"That's all fine and good, but I'm standing by my words," growled Derrick. "I will _end you."_ His eyes locked on the younger employee's name tag, as if sealing the vendetta he had against him.

"Don't worry about him, son," the manager advised Clyde, resting a hand on his shoulder once the performer had been whisked away on a stretcher by the paramedics. "Derrick's a little rough but I know him well enough to tell he didn't really mean any of that." Craning his neck to see the incident report the youthful worker was filling out, he watched as Clyde paused in his writing, his ballpoint pen suspended over the clipboard.

"Uh, what type of accident do you think I should categorize this as?" he asked, admitting his bewilderment and inexperience.

Mitch sighed. "Call it what it is. Multiple and simultaneous spring-lock failures, resulting in grotesque maiming."

Clyde raised an eyebrow at him, shrugging. "Yeah, I guess that'll work," he said, scribbling away.

* * *

_2019_

Sitting in the passenger seat of the moving van with Harry at the wheel, the innate thrill-seeker in Mike couldn't help but inwardly rejoice when the outlines of the amusement park's Ferris wheel and chair lift came into view on the horizon. Despite being well into his fourth decade, he still had made it a mission to patronize Krayzee Action Park every so often when his finances permitted it, screaming hysterically and taking risks with whatever friend he could drag along for the day.

Seated in the last car of the park's fiercest roller coaster, his hands thrust fearlessly in the air, his thinning hair flapping wildly in the rush of wind and finding himself half-flung from his seat at the crest of the highest hills, Mike had always relished the feeling of absolute weightlessness and the freedom to forget the troubles that seemed to perpetually await him once he left the park grounds at closing time. His escape came in a controlled and mostly safe environment, unlike his days in the security office at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, when the terror had been anything but manufactured.

Ending his reverie, Harry maneuvered the van through the gates at the outskirts of the park, pulling up to a cluster of battered tractor-trailers. "Guess this is it," he announced gruffly, then shut off the ignition to consult his phone. "You know, Mike, all the way here we talked about how much you want to find a job that'll last ya. I see this place needs landscapers, and it would be full-time work, at least during the season. Once we're done unloading this old junk, why don't you march on down to the office and pick up an application? This could be your big break. Learn the trade for a season or two and maybe you could start your own business."

"That's hardly a bad idea. Maybe I will," Mike said absently, suddenly unable to tear his attention from the fright attraction looming before their eyes.

* * *

To Mike's disappointment, the proprietor of the new haunted house had left the grounds, supposedly out procuring more "artifacts" for his attraction, and the makeshift building itself was padlocked, with instructions being left to unload everything into an empty trailer parked away from the others.

"I was kinda hoping we could see the place; I'm curious where he plans to go with this," he admitted to Harry as they wrestled a hefty arcade cabinet down the ramp of the van. "Ugh, does this thing even work or does he just want it for appearance's sake?"

"We're making honest money, Mike, so don't knock the work," Harry responded with his perpetual sense of patience. They lowered the cabinet to the floor at the rear of the trailer, near a box of stripped-down components that had unmistakably once been animatronic characters. "Eew, what're these?" he asked, kneeling by the box and pulling out a dust-covered facemask.

Mike grinned. "Aw, they found the characters from the most short-lived Freddy's. That was a real score; from, uh, what I heard, that restaurant was only open a week and then after the usual tragedies, the characters were immediately scrapped. I had no idea those would still be around; I was sure they became landfill fodder a long time ago."

Harry lowered the headpiece of a yellow chicken back into the box, eyeing Mike curiously. "I know I've said this before, but you sure know a lot about that pizzeria chain. Scratch the landscaping idea, maybe you should help the kid who's trying to get this started, as a sort of consultant. I'm sure he'd be glad to have you."

After the last item was unloaded into the trailer, Mike helped Harry secure the moving van, but he waved his employer off, ensuring him he'd hitch a ride home after paying a visit to the park office.

* * *

_Author's Note: In no way was it meant to be implied that Phone Guy/Clyde's voice actor has a "snotty voice." That's just Derrick being a jerk and not the author's opinion at all!_


	3. The Sidetracked Entrepreneur

_Author's Note: Trigger warning for drug usage later in this chapter._

_July 1980_

The telephone on a nearby table rang, its shrill tone interrupting the insipid game show Derrick had been watching sullenly from his hospital bed. Muting the television, he winced as he shifted his weight away from his injured leg and reached for the receiver, already dreading that it was likely another work-related call. He had burned far too many bridges and cut too many ties in his personal life for anyone else to bother checking in on him.

"Hello, hello? Hey, Derrick! I have some great news. I still can't believe this myself, but someone in management actually took me seriously and listened for a change." Derrick groaned and slapped a hand to his forehead in frustration, pulling it down over his eyes and peering out at the room through splayed fingers. The kid just didn't get it that he hardly cared to be filled in on the changes taking place at the pizzeria in his absence, calling at least daily and somehow believing they had a sense of camaraderie.

"They're retiring the Spring Bonnie suits; in fact, in typical Fazbear Entertainment fashion, they're going to seal them up in the safe rooms at each restaurant and forget they ever existed," Clyde continued, undeterred. "The new band characters are nearly finished, but in the meantime, each location is renting out some mascot costumes from the local theater shop. Y'know, just ordinary fleece-and-fur walk-around suits, no dangerous wires or springs whatsoever."

"Don't kid yourself, Clyde," Derrick cut in, staring glumly at his leg, which had been mended with a countless number of pins and a steel rod. "Didn't you say yesterday that the insurance company was breathing down your necks? _That's_ what led the company to stow away the suits, not any case you pleaded." He yawned, tempted to cut off the call altogether, but when little else was working in his favor he at least enjoyed messing with the kid. "I have some 'great news,' too. That swanky restaurant, the one that was my real bread-and-butter day job? They called today as well, and said not to bother returning to work when I'm better. They've already found a replacement server for my shift." He heard a startled gasp on the other end of the line.

"Aw, no," Clyde exclaimed. "I'm sorry they cut you loose, but we're more than ready to have you back at Freddy's. I argued for you; they're even willing to give you full-time. Full-time with benefits, _nobody_ gets that! There's an opening for a security officer I wouldn't mind taking myself, but of course I'd save it for you. It's a cake job: just sit there and watch the grounds and the animatronics on the monitors. That might be perfect until you regain the strength in your leg."

"Is that so?" Derrick asked, sharing little of Clyde's enthusiasm. "Well, I'll consider it, and while it's a real honor to hear I'm the casualty that led to the big cover-up, you're a day late and a buck short." His voice lowered ominously. "And I meant what I said in the safe room. Better watch your back, chum."

The training coordinator laughed reluctantly. "How much morphine do they have you on, anyway? You might wanna ask 'em to dial it back just a little bit; you're not yourself." The phone receiver seemed to grow cold in his hand and he was grateful when he signed off for the night and hung it up.

* * *

"You're interested in working at that monstrosity my son's trying to rig up?" asked the park manager incredulously, shaking his head and watching Mike fill out an application right in the office. It had been so long since anyone had requested an actual paper form versus applying for work online that he'd been challenged to recall where he even stored the forms, finally locating them in a filing cabinet. "You frankly look like you could do better, but then again, provided he'd even listen to you, maybe Randy could use the guidance of someone with a little more maturity and professionalism under his belt."

Mike's breath caught in his throat; _that_ was one he'd never heard before."Ray, I'm perfectly willing to lend my expertise and help him with anything he needs to get his project guest-ready." He passed the completed application to the patriarch of the family that owned the park, biting his lip while the man skimmed the long history of falsified work experience and nonexistent references. To his relief, Ray's face positively lit up.

"You've worked the carnival circuit for the last seven years? By Jove, you're _exactly_ who he needs; you know how these attractions work and what draws the crowds in." He strolled over to a large map of the park pinned to the wall, feigning sudden interest in the layout he knew like the back of his hand. "Just between you and me, Mister Schmidt, I let Randy do his own thing the last few years, which as far as I can tell amounted to a whole lot of nothing, just a kid running amok and refusing to grow up." He grimaced. "At his age, I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay in the family business or strike it out on my own, either. But at any rate, he's decided he wants in on this and wants to prove himself with this abomination he's using my money to build. Maybe you can keep his efforts a little more...directed?"

"Put in a good word for me and I'll try my best," Mike vowed, his breath catching in his throat.

* * *

"Dude, you're like, almost as old as my old man!" Randy exclaimed, leaning back in his chair and resting his dirty sneakers on the desk in front of him. He had set up a makeshift business office right in the center of the vacant horror attraction, and Mike recognized the heavy steel desk as the same one he'd helped haul out of his old security room. "And you're so old-school, dressing up for an interview like that." The smell of cannabis hung heavy in the limited space around them as he broke into a laugh, and the twenty-something fumbled for the joint he'd seemingly lost in the ashtray.

"Uh, yeah, but I'm a _cool_ older guy," Mike corrected him, looking down at his typical interview outfit, a button-down shirt and pair of pressed slacks he'd owned for nearly as long as Randy, who was wearing torn jeans and a rock concert t-shirt, had been alive. Adapting to his potential employer's nature, he gradually changed his posture to match the other man's, slouching insolently in his chair, hands clasped behind his neck.

"Got it. You as nervous about interviews as I am? Have one of these," Randy offered, fishing a second joint out of a case in the desk, lighting it off the first and passing it toward Mike, who took it with a grin and inhaled deeply. The former security guard rarely indulged in the stuff, but he was willing to do anything to ingratiate himself with the young entrepreneur.

"Wow, thanks, man. Yeah, normally I get all worked up about job interviews, but this is by far the coolest one I've ever been on," he admitted, thrilled the kid was buying his act wholesale. "So I get it you're trying to make some sorta spookhouse based on the pizzeria murders? That's _so_ far out."

Randy positively beamed, his face reflecting his joy over being able to discuss his plans with someone else who shared his enthusiasm. Enveloped in a thickening cloud of smoke that was slowly filling the trailer, he needed no further invitation to present his ideas, his hands gesturing wildly as he talked.

"You bet! I'm trying to stick it to my old man and show him I can really make something that'll add to this place, maybe even outdo all he's ever built. I grew up surrounded by all these dark ride attractions in this park and none of them remotely scare me anymore, or anyone else for that matter. You wanna know what the big stunt is in the funhouse, the one that's supposed to frighten everyone half to death? A lousy bedsheet ghost that pops down at you with this canned scream, and that thing's so filthy and sorry-looking that most guests just laugh at it. I wanted to make something that would truly terrify everyone, something that would bring them to the park all on its own."

Randy frowned, looking thoughtful for a moment. "My old man is sore because he didn't know what I was planning until it was too late and I'd already bought all the Freddy's stuff at the auction. I guess he feels it's bad karma to make a horror house based on something that really happened, but that was, what, thirty years ago? That was all way before my time, and I doubt most people remember it."

"I dunno, but maybe he's got a point," Mike admitted, trying to remain focused despite the effects of the drug creeping in on his mind. "I didn't live around here back then, but most folks my age sure recall those incidents. When a bunch of local kids your age go missing, you don't exactly forget about it, even if you wish you could."

The entrepreneur peered through the smoke at the empty walls all around him. "You might be right," he admitted. "But it's too late to back out now; I already blew all the money I was given on this pizzeria stuff." Running his fingers through his shaggy hair, he was already feeling overwhelmed with the business decisions he had made, and being under the influence was hardly helping him get his thoughts in order.

"Bummer, man," Mike said, his eyes straying down to his interviewer's forgotten stub of a joint, left smoldering right on his job application. "Oh, hey, you might wanna do something about that." Randy sheepishly retrieved it and crushed it out in the ashtray, frowning at the scorched paper, and it was then that Mike realized that he actually liked the young kid, despite his initial misgivings about his intentions. They both had something to prove to the world, and precious few, if any, allies who believed in them.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Mike consoled him, taking a deep, languid draw of air. "Here's how I see it: you go with a theme around the murders and this place's days are numbered. That's more than a little cold, and someone's gonna burn it to the ground outta sheer vengeance, maybe even taking your dad's park with it. So just tweak your plan a bit, maybe go with a scary pizza-robot theme." He chuckled. "Those things were _terrifying_ back in the day, even if they made some efforts to make 'em less frightening for the kids later on. I'm sure with your imagination you can put together something really wicked, and even if you don't hire me, I'd love to come back and see it."

"Even if I _don't_ hire you?" sputtered Randy, his gratitude apparent. "Consider yourself not only hired, you're practically my partner in this deal now! I'm totally going with your idea." Mike rose to his feet in surprise and they shook hands, grinning fiercely.

"Then it's a done deal! Come back after the weekend and I'll show you around," Randy promised as Mike left the trailer. "I've got my work cut out for me, but you're gonna love this when it's done. That's Monday at midnight, because my dad insists I test out the attraction after hours." His face fell momentarily. "I don't think he wants the embarrassment of anyone else seeing it fail, you know, just in case it doesn't work out."

"It'll work out," Mike reassured him, flashing a peace sign back at the trailer. "Keep the faith!" he yelled, smiling when Randy flashed him the devil's horns in response. He made the decision to trudge his way home in his dress shoes rather than hitch a ride after all, just to give himself the time to process all that had happened. He'd gone in to the interview expecting to meet with a completely amoral opportunist, yet had left with a new friend he felt oddly protective of, just as someone else had looked out for him back at the pizzeria.


	4. Goodbye, Old Friend

_July 1980_

Clipboard in hand as always, Clyde conducted a last-minute inventory of the contents of the safe room at his "home base" restaurant location, the same one where Mike Schmidt would briefly serve as the night watch decades later. The work crew was already assembling their equipment outside in the hallway, ready to wall off the little niche at the far end with a sheet of plywood and make it look as though it had never existed.

There wasn't much to list, aside from some broken furniture and a few burnt-out, glitchy arcade games. With the video arcade industry still in its infancy, it seemed incredible that there already existed game cabinets ready for retirement, but the particular machines had been poorly designed, prone to dangerous overheating and were impossible to maintain, let alone repair.

"And that leaves you, Spring Bonnie," Clyde reluctantly announced, addressing the golden rabbit character that stood silently against the wall and wondering if the animatronic devices within still held enough of a charge for him to hear and process what he was saying. He had been moved hastily over from the satellite location after the spring-lock failure, tucked away in the safe room with employees ordered to keep away from him, as if the character himself was a threat. "I know this wasn't _your_ fault, but after that horrible accident, this has to be done for everyone's good, your own included." Taking a draw off his cigarette, he cringed, knowing his fellow workers openly scoffed at him for talking to the animatronics as though they were his equals.

"They wanted to scrap you outright, but since the insurance company's been pushing us to lose these safe rooms anyway, someone came up with the idea of stowing you in here." He smiled weakly, feeling the need to explain everything to the character whether Spring Bonnie could hear him or not. "Maybe the world just wasn't ready for a great animatronic like you. Think of it this way: you'll be part of a time capsule, and who knows, someday, someone might bust open this false wall and fix you up and you'll be the star of the show once again. Heck, I promise I'll do it myself if I ever fight my way up high enough in this company."

Reaching out to rest a hand on the acrylic fur of the rabbit's chest, he looked apologetically one last time into the cheerful face of the character the young guests to the pizzeria had loved so dearly.

"Goodbye, old friend."

"You done in there?" asked the work crew foreman after Clyde had shuffled out. His workers were standing by impatiently with the sheets of plywood.

"Yeah," admitted the training coordinator in resignation, "have at it." As the sound of electric drills filled the hallway behind him, he gazed up despondently at the promotional posters mounted on the wall. Just days ago, the posters hung throughout the pizzeria had all featured Fredbear and Spring Bonnie, but those had been stowed in the safe room along with the rabbit character himself, and the replacement posters showcased the new and improved "Freddy's band," consisting of an entirely different cast of animatronics. Fredbear had been given a reprieve at least for now, with his spring-lock character deactivated and merely moved to the backstage room at both locations. It was an awkward era of transition, but now that Clyde had faced the worst of it, maybe everything would look better in the long run.

* * *

"Randy, you've outdone yourself!" Mike slapped a hand to his forehead incredulously as he was pulled by one arm through the attraction by its enthusiastic creator. "This is amazing, just like being back in the old place in its heyday. I seriously can't believe you did all this in just two days." As far as he could tell, Randy had set aside his recreational smoking to make a true attempt at building his dream over the weekend, and it was already evident he was an entirely different individual when sober.

The kid clearly had an eye for design even if his father didn't appreciate it; he had retrofit the otherwise useless animatronic masks with light bulbs to serve as lamps over each corridor of the winding path that led through the maze, as if to beckon guests toward the next frightful scenario, and he had papered the walls with children's crayon drawings and other decorations recovered from the defunct restaurants. Arcade games were located at unexpected bends in the hallways, lending to the feel that one was trapped hopelessly in something that had been meant to be a kiddie haven but had become something else entirely. The fresh, sharp smell of pine sawdust permeated the air, a testament to his diligent work.

"Yeah, I threw a lot of elbow grease into it," Randy said dismissively, inwardly glowing that someone approved of the long hours he had put into the project. "But I thought you said you weren't around to visit any of the restaurants back when you were a kid." He stopped short to take a screwdriver from his pocket and refasten a wooden pizza-slice decoration that had started to slide off the wall.

"Right, I wasn't," Mike quickly corrected himself. "But while the Freddy's in your area might've shut down - and didn't you say it burned to the ground pretty soon after that? - thirty years ago, the one back in my hometown hung on all the way until the end of 2014, I think it was, before it sputtered out for lack of business. I, uh, was there a few times for my nephews' and nieces' birthday parties. Cool enough place, if you could stand the goofy songs and the constant screaming from all the kids."

Randy's shoulders fell. "Yeah, screaming. Speaking of which, I guess this isn't so terribly spooky just yet, huh? I was really hoping to find something that would actually scare the living daylights out of our guests, but right now this is just a sorry walk-through deal with some creepy stuff tacked up on the walls. I was kind of counting on at least _one_ animatronic still being intact; what a rip-off."

"Hey, I meant it when I said I wanted to see what you came up with, and ya already done good," Mike reassured him. "You bought out, what, at least two vacant restaurants? Maybe you missed something. You know what they say, 'if you don't succeed, try, try again.'" He bit his lip as Randy guided him through the final twisting corridors in the maze, dreading the inevitable moment when he'd discover a reenactment of the brutal murders that had been committed at his old workplace, but when they reached the end and merely wound up in a mock-up of his old security office, he found it touching that the younger man had made a true effort to abide by his advice and forgo any significant reference to the pizzeria's tragic past.

* * *

_October 1980_

"Hey, kids, who's already having fun?" asked Clyde, standing before the drawn curtain on the show stage at the satellite location. "Enjoying that free pizza tonight? I want to thank you all for coming out to the official unveiling of our all-new Freddy Fazbear band!" He flashed his most winning smile at the young crowd sprawled on the floor around the stage. In a hasty public relations move following the unfortunate and traumatizing spring-trap failure, the company had issued free admission tickets to each child in attendance for the promised debut of the new characters, and over his protests, the training coordinator had been asked to serve as the event's emcee. Clyde remained convinced it had been a mistake, though; it was one thing to feel comfortable enough to record a training lesson by speaking alone into a tape recorder or even showing someone the ropes in person, and something else entirely to take center stage and address a huge crowd, even if they were just kids.

At a table off to the side in the expansive dining room, Derrick leaned forward, a wide grin on his face and a light wrap over his healed leg. "This is only going to get better from here," he said with devious glee, taking another sip of the beer he had poured from the tap behind the concession counter. Next to him, Marjorie, the former Fredbear performer, rolled her eyes, her own drink barely touched.

"For you, maybe. You got him wasted on purpose," she accused, frowning at Derrick's arm, which had somehow ended up across her shoulders. No sooner had she and the others greeted the performer upon his return just a week ago than she'd seen what was going on at the restaurant for what it was. Management seemed so relieved he had never bothered to sue over his extensive injuries that they were perfectly willing to grant him a wide berth, which he had taken to his advantage. Accepting the day-shift security guard position with apparent enthusiasm, Derrick had misused his newfound authority on countless occasions, including today, when he'd bullied the teenager at the concession counter into providing several free rounds of alcoholic drinks to the trio at his table.

"I was just helping the kid overcome his stage fright!" he protested, leaning back and smoothing a hand over the crisp purple work shirt that designated him as a guard. He frowned as Marjorie shrugged off the arm he had rested on her shoulder. "Hey, he's doing fine, just watch."

"So Spring Bonnie got, uh, hurt a little, but I'm happy to say he's all better now and he's even on a special assignment away from Freddy Fazbear's Pizza," Clyde addressed the children, lowering his voice as if sharing a great secret. "I heard he's off helping _the real Easter Bunny _with all those eggs year-round, but he's sent along his special friends from Animal Land to party and celebrate with you." Glancing down at the sheet of looseleaf that contained the script he'd written, he tried to make out the text, which had mysteriously become blurry. The band's backstory had made a lot more sense when he'd actually written it out, but he at least felt he could wing it from here.

"Uh, first there's his very own cousin, Bonnie the Bunny!" The curtains slowly drew back, revealing a trio of animatronic characters, still mostly obscured by the fog effects from a machine just offstage. "He's a real guitar legend, ready to jam with anyone who wants to learn the words to the band's songs. And, hailing from a farm in central Iowa, presenting our backup singer, Chica the Chicken! She's a young leghorn chicken with a healthy appetite for fun and adventure, as well as our own fresh-baked pizzas! Finally, the leader of the band-_hey!" _Clyde exhaled sharply, staring down at his white dress shirt, where a slice of pizza had just landed, sliding downward and leaving a greasy triangle of tomato sauce on the fabric. "Who threw that?"

Marjorie glared at Derrick in disapproval as he nearly fell off his chair in hysterics.

"We want Spring Bonnie!" a snarky, young voice demanded. "Your new band _sucks."_ As if on cue, other kids joined in the chorus, rising to their feet and growing more agitated and restless.

"Sorry, kids, but he's left the building," Clyde informed the audience with a helpless shrug, dodging a thrown drink cup. "Hey, does your mother know you use that kinda language?!" _Who exactly had put them up to this? _He ducked behind the Freddy Fazbear animatronic that he probably wasn't going to get the opportunity to properly introduce, and reluctantly tossed forward several handfuls of company-issued free arcade tokens to the crowd. "Here, go play some Pac-Man!"

* * *

"Well, that went down like a lead balloon," Clyde sighed, resting his face on his palm at the table in utter defeat and staring down at his stained shirt. It felt as though a thousand tiny hammers were assaulting his brain, and he wasn't remotely ready to down the mug of coffee Marjorie had thoughtfully brought him. "Just great, I was done in by a bunch of kids."

"Maybe so, but give 'em a little time and they'll get used to the new band," Derrick reassured him. "See? Look, the free arcade tokens calmed 'em down." He gestured to the arcade, alive with the frenzied activity of a hundred wired children, stoked up over the opportunity for free game play and an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet as well.

"If I can let you in on a little secret, I can barely stand the little twerps myself," he admitted, while Clyde and Marjorie glanced at each other in alarm.


	5. It's Downright Sick

"Hey, Mike?" Randy asked hesitantly as they stood in the re-creation of the security office. "There is one thing I sorta forgot to tell you. This place is sick, man."

"Of course it's downright sick!" Mike tried to reassure him. "The guests are gonna love it."

Randy smiled and shook his head, examining a toy figure of Chica that was sitting on the desk next to similar models of Freddy and Bonnie. "No, I mean it's got, like, that sick-building syndrome you hear about or something. This place has really bad air; I guess cramming all those dank and moldy relics in here wasn't such a hot idea after all. But on the bright side, my dad's sorta coming around on this whole thing, and he even sent over a work crew to install some vents and ductwork to try and make it better, along with fire exit signs and all that legal stuff you need." He sneezed, pulling a tissue from his pocket. "Not that it seemed to help, though; I've had a pounding headache all weekend and I sure hope _you_ don't have mold allergies. If you do, you picked the wrong place to work, but I'd understand if you need to back out."

"Naw, I'm blessedly unaffected by mold," Mike informed his employer with a dismissive shrug.

"Good to hear. But hey man, since I already showed you the place, is it cool if I, like, tell you the rest over the phone? I've got to bust outta here or my head's totally gonna explode. Getting barely five hours of sleep all weekend and living off of deep-fried junk from the concession stands sorta did me in." Randy finished with a laugh at his own expense. "Heh, after spending my whole life here, you'd think I'd have learned by now that you can't live off that stuff, but I just can't quit it!

Oh, yeah. There's one more thing I almost forgot: your new threads! Go ahead, pick one out, I'll explain later," he said, gesturing to a pile of clothing on the desk that Mike had already recognized as the company-issued security guard uniforms from the pizzeria.

He found it at the bottom of the pile, the very shirt he'd worn five years ago. Holding it out at arm's length, he could still make out the faint sweat stains on the undersides of the sleeves. The light blue fabric was slightly mildewed, as was everything salvaged from the waterlogged building.

"Sweet, it's like it was made for you! Just your size and everything," Randy exclaimed after he'd tugged it on, while Mike struggled to keep a straight face, recalling the last time he had worn the shirt.

* * *

_November 14, 2014 _

Mike stormed across the parking lot toward his beat-up station wagon, his employment at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza having just come to an abrupt but not entirely unexpected end.

"Schmidt!" shouted his former boss, who had escorted him roughly out the front door. "I need the damn shirt back!" The newly unemployed security guard fumbled with the buttons as he walked, stripped the garment off right in the parking lot and crumpled it into a ball, which he flung back at Nathan Faz.

"Take it!" he yelled, beyond incensed. "And while you're at it, take this, too!" Standing shirtless on the asphalt, he flashed a series of obscene gestures in the general direction of the man he had worked for, as well as the restaurant itself and all it contained. "And for the last time, I did _not_ tamper with your animatronics!"

_When you burn bridges, Mike, you sure like doing a thorough job of it,_ Faz thought to himself, shaking his head in dismay. He had far bigger things to worry about than his mediocre employee, as his business was in its final death throes, financially speaking. Listening as the engine to Mike's ancient car failed to turn over, he rolled his eyes as the irate man tried in vain several more times to start it, finally giving up and exiting the car, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

Though the manager felt a twinge of malicious amusement when Mike impulsively brought both fists down on the hood, creating yet another large dent on the vehicle, the words he yelled as he stalked off in absolute frustration left him with sudden and unexpected sympathy for the guy.

_"Why _does everything have to be so _hard?"_

Faz fought the urge to run after Mike as he set off on foot, but instead he resigned himself to returning indoors, where he stood before the show stage, looking up at the trio of characters and contemplating the imminent demise of his business.

"I've been asking that myself for a long time, Mike," he said softly before setting about shutting down the place. There were so many unpleasant tasks that had to be done - cancelling vendor contracts, selling off the kitchen equipment, and so on - before he could lay his once-thriving enterprise to rest, and he dreaded them all.

* * *

"Okay, I've really got to split soon because this bad air is killing me, but you've probably guessed by now that you're not going to just be the attraction attendant, but an actor in this whole thing," Randy informed Mike. He gestured around the mock-up of the security office. "Man, the guys who worked this job for real? They were the ultimate badasses, and nobody even knew it, but they were downright legendary. I did my research, and get a load of this: the animatronics _didn't_ shut off at night! In fact, they got really aggressive, like they had minds of their own, and the guards had to keep them from breaking out of the building or whatever. I guess it was cheaper to hire the night watch than to actually fix the malfunctioning robots, but those guys who worked there had pure _guts,_ and they did it all for minimum wage. Hard to believe, isn't it?" The entrepreneur shook his head in disbelief as Mike listened in awestruck reverence.

"Anyone who could handle _that_ kinda work would have all my respect," Randy mused, while Mike took sudden interest in the rusted fan on the desk, trying to hide his reaction. "But hey, _your_ job's pure cake. Like I said, we didn't find any animatronics for you to watch over."

_Just as well,_ Mike wanted to tell him. Once Randy left, he clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his old chair, contemplating the reality that, as a former, washed-up security guard roleplaying a successful security guard in his prime, his situation couldn't have become more ironic.

* * *

_1982_

"Hey, wait, kiddo!" Clyde called out, while a child skidded to a halt just past him on the tiled floor just outside the restrooms, loosened shoelaces trailing dangerously behind his sneakers. "We have a motto here at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza: safety first! Now, before you head into that jungle gym, those shoes need tied so you don't wind up falling and hurting yourself. Go ahead, let's see you do it." Noticing the boy's helpless headshake and realizing he was probably too young to tie them himself, he smiled and dropped to his knees, lacing up his tennis shoes. "It's okay, I can show ya how it's done: 'Over, under, around and through, meet Mister Bunny Rabbit, pull 'em through!' See? Now you're good to go!" He tousled the boy's hair, exchanged a high-five, and rose to his feet, the youngster departing with a shy and quiet gesture of thanks before pitching headlong into the ball pit in the jungle gym.

Clyde turned to face Derrick, who was patrolling the grounds and fixing him with a look of sinister amusement. In the past two years following the spring-lock failure, the satellite location had quickly earned its reputation for being the most trouble-prone in the small but growing franchise, thanks to a long series of relatively minor yet preventable accidents involving patrons and employees alike. Management had frequently requested Clyde's assistance with improved safety training, and things were only just gradually beginning to turn around.

"Well, aren't you just _good_ with kids," Derrick sneered, having given up long ago on trying to make nice with the ambitious training coordinator. Clyde, however, had steadfastly failed to grasp his thinly-veiled hostility and still maintained the belief they were friends. "'Meet Mister Bunny Rabbit,' _really?" _A shoe-tying poem from nursery school; that's beyond sad. What do you see in all these rugrats, anyway?"

Unfazed, the other man flashed his usual good-natured grin. "Uh, they're our valued customers, y'know, not to mention the lifeblood of this enterprise and our entire livelihood, so we oughtta treat them nice. Not to mention they're so adorable!" His grin widened, at least until he noticed the security guard's scowling face. "What do you have against 'em, anyway?"

Derrick grimaced, subtly bringing a hand down to rest on his damaged leg. _More than you might think..._ Once Clyde had left, no doubt in search of another child to save from an untied-shoe catastrophe, he rested a hand on the plywood wall that had sealed off the safe room.

"Meet Mister Bunny Rabbit," he repeated slowly under his breath, his mind a polluted waste pit of the darkest thoughts imaginable. His fingers ran over the screws that held the board to the drywall behind it; in their haste to erase any trace of the safe room, the work crew had hardly done a thorough job, leaving the panel easily removable by anyone with a screwdriver and enough unsupervised time on his hands.

"Or maybe they should meet Mister Bear," he mused, suddenly recalling the golden Fredbear costume that had languished in the backstage room for the last two years. He rubbed his hands together in the most deranged fashion, not even caring that he no doubt resembled a classic movie villain.

_You poor sap, trying to make this place safer, _he thought to himself, peering around the corner into the dining area where Clyde was actually scaling the jungle gym, trying to guide down a child who had apparently ascended to the top and then became too petrified to make her way down. _You think you can save them all...but _you can't.

_You can't._


	6. Mike's Mission

_Author's Note: Is anyone else thrilled that since there are plans for an FNaF movie, some lucky writer is probably going to be starting soon on a movie novelization, i.e. an FNaF paperback? I can't wait for that book!  
_

* * *

_December 2014_

Mike Schmidt's lanky form sprawled awkwardly in the plastic chair at the local police station, his mind working desperately to find a way to make anyone believe him. Across the desk, the chief fixed him with a clear expression of bewilderment, trying to process the wild claims that the brash former security guard had made.

"Let me get this straight," Chief Carswell asked with his usual dry wit, "you're trying to say that our local missing person was actually shoved into, what, a pizza robot suit, by the other pizza robots? You'll have to forgive me for finding that a little hard to swallow." His frown deepened, for he recognized the man in front of him, for once in the station of his own volition, all too well. "Mister Schmidt, you're hardly unknown to law enforcement yourself, but just between you and me, while I can't say much about your judgement nor your common sense, at least until now I never detected any signs that you were delusional."

"Maybe your tune will change once you search the place," Mike insisted, sweat forming on his brow. He should have known this would be a fool's quest and that nobody would believe him. It had taken him an excruciatingly long time to gather the courage to request an interview with the police chief, and he felt strange being in the station without the customary handcuffs. _"Please,_ just do it before the contents of the building end up sold off or whatever. Check everything in that backstage room, especially, and look _inside_ the animatronics. That's what he wanted, only I was fired so abruptly I was never allowed to search anywhere."

Carswell raised an eyebrow in surprise. "What _he_ wanted, you say? Clyde Miller was last seen two weeks before your date of hire. Are you implying you were in contact with him _after_ his disappearance?" As downright insane as Mike's theory was as to the missing man's fate, the chief remained curious about his passionate concern for a former employee, who by his own word the fired security guard had never even met.

"No, sir. Like I told you, he left recordings in the phone system at the pizzeria; that seemed to be the company's preferred way of training new hires. I dunno, I guess it was cheaper than paying him to actually come back in and train me in person after he'd quit the job." His gaze fell to a small photograph clipped to the missing-person file, seeing for the first time what his late mentor had looked like. In what was clearly a terrible driver's license photo requested from the department of motor vehicles, Clyde appeared...nondescript. Eyeglasses, thinning brown hair just a little longer than what would have been conventional for his age, and a kindly if somewhat careworn face.

"In his last call, he sounded so defeated, and I don't think he was making it up, taking into account he made that tape so close to the last time he can be accounted for. I swear for all I'm worth, the guy knew he was doomed, and he practically begged me to check the back room."

"...But you couldn't, because then the killer pizza robots would have attacked you as well," offered the chief, tenting his fingers under his chin and smirking less than kindly. Mike slapped a hand to his damp forehead.

"I'd tell you to check the phone system so you could hear the messages for yourself, but I know that old boss of mine well enough; he pulled a Watergate and erased anything incriminating." He looked imploringly into Carswell's eyes for any flicker of belief but found only the twinkle of amusement, and rose from his chair. "Fine," Mike snapped, "you're right, I'm just wasting both our time and I never wanted to be here anyway." Just as he turned the doorknob, the chief cleared his throat, his actions all business once more.

"Schmidt, I know _you_ well enough to tell what you're planning. You're going to go investigate yourself, aren't you? I need to remind you that breaking and entering and criminal trespass are hardly misdemeanors." He sighed, shaking his head. "We did do a general search of the building as part of our investigation into the disappearance," he informed Mike, suddenly recalling how strangely anxious the owner had been about allowing his officers access to the backstage room.

_"If_ I conducted a more thorough search of that room and, uh, checked inside the animatronics, would that satisfy your curiosity? If so, then get out, and in return, _don't_ let me see you dragged back in here by one of my men anytime soon. Heaven knows they've spent - some might even say _wasted_ \- enough time and manpower trying to keep you straightened out." Staring down at the file folder in front of him, he muttered, "and exactly who died and made _you_ a security guard, anyway?"

"Thank you, sir," Mike said, chafing at the reminder of his past mistakes. Then, just to let the chief know he had overheard his barely audible slight, he added, "his photo's right on your desk. Just check, okay?"

* * *

"Well, this has been _interesting," _Chief Carswell said as Nathan Faz, back at his defunct business, begrudgingly assisted him in opening the hinges on the last of the four animatronic costumes. While the suits could ostensibly hold a human body and they did indeed contain the lethal-looking crossbeams and other mechanical devices that Mike had described in startlingly accurate detail, there didn't appear to be a chance any of the characters had ever served as someone's not-quite-final resting place. Aside from a sheen of lubricating oil on the moving parts, the machinery was completely pristine, untainted by any trace of human remains. _Or it was meticulously cleaned by an expert,_ Carswell mused before shaking his head at almost buying into a fantastical story told by the local ne'er-do-well.

"Thanks for your time today, I do appreciate it, and I take it Mike was pretty sore at being let go? This sorta has 'false report as revenge' written all over it," he confided in the manager, peering with his flashlight into the complex animatronic devices mounted within the costume. Faz had just started to enumerate the many ways Mike Schmidt had failed to live up to his company's expectations when Carswell reached between two gears in the headpiece, extracting a slender length of metal. They both stared in speechless horror at the twisted and mangled item, still recognizable as the stem from a pair of eyeglasses with a plastic earpiece attached.

"Now that's a _sick_ joke, even for Mike!" Faz sputtered in outrage, finally breaking the silence. He was relieved when Carswell stepped back from the purple rabbit costume, which was, in contrast, showing its advanced age at least from the outside, and shrugged, but not before he dropped the eyeglass stem into a paper envelope. The chief was quick to reassure him that an obviously-planted personal effect found at the scene of a supposed crime was far from a smoking gun, and expressed his condolences for the loss of his business before declaring his investigation over for the time being.

Back at the station, Carswell rubbed his temples thoughtfully, the broken stem sitting on the desk before him next to the grainy photograph of the security guard, whose glasses were indeed a thin, metal-framed variety. He already feared the region's only missing-adult case in recent memory had all the hallmarks of becoming cold, but as he sat twirling the stem between his fingers, he had already decided he was not going to accuse Mike Schmidt of any wrongdoing, at least for the time being. That wasn't to say he was about to believe him anytime soon, either.

* * *

_1982_

"Hold it right there," Derrick said with a tone of authority that clashed with his attempt at a friendly grin, stepping in front of Clyde as he prepared to file out after the other employees for the night. "A little birdie told me it's your birthday, so you're not leaving _that _easily!"

Clyde chuckled and tugged on Derrick's sleeve, thrilled the guard was not being his usual surly self for once. "I wouldn't exactly say Chica's a _little_ birdie, but if the band really knows it's my birthday, I'm outta here and you'd better split as well, while we still can. That is, unless you're up for hearing them sing those awful, syrupy-sweet songs to celebrate all night. Besides, I'm twenty-one, not five. How about we adults hit up The Hideaway down the road instead? It'll be my treat." He nonetheless let himself be pulled back inside at Derrick's insistence, and they were soon seated at a table in the dining area. The band mercifully remained on stage, eerily silent and motionless and seemingly unaware of the special occasion.

"Sorry, pal, but at my salary we're celebrating here, and the drinks are on me tonight, or should I say on Fazbear Entertainment. You work so hard, like you're trying to make up for your age, and you never relax," the security guard scolded, bringing over the first round of ill-gotten beer from the tap at the concessions counter. _And you don't learn, either,_ he thought gleefully, tapping glasses with the other man.

* * *

"So, tell me more about the spring-trap suit you put in time-out," Derrick asked, his arm around Clyde's shoulder. The two had spent the last two hours laughing and joking like the long-time friends the training coordinator really believed they were, and now that his target had taken on a sufficiently glassy-eyed look, Derrick felt it safe to ask some pointed questions.

"Oh, is that what you call Spring Bonnie now?" Clyde asked, his cigarette nearly falling as his lips curved into a frown. "I guess it's an apt title, though. I feel bad for what happened to you, but also for him." Realizing what he'd said, he regarded Derrick with alarm. "I-I mean, I get it if you don't feel sorry for him one bit, but he got the bad end of the deal, too.

I thought I was doing what was best, pressing management to restrict the two classic costumes to animatronic-mode only, but before I knew it they decided to deep-six them altogether." His eyes misted over, remembering his emotional farewell to the rabbit character. "When it came down to it, it was crushing to have to tell him he was going to get sealed up in that room for who-knows-how-long." Clyde swirled a finger in his beer, trying to catch up a speck of dust that had landed in the beverage. "To this day, I really think he got it. He knew I probably won't ever be able to get him out of there someday, even if I promised him otherwise." His lips loosened by the alcohol, the training coordinator was grateful Derrick for once wasn't making fun of his fascination with the animatronic characters.

The guard leaned in close, his voice conspiratorial. "We have all night, and I wouldn't mind seeing him again myself. It would bring me some closure." He pulled a screwdriver from his pocket, twisting it between his fingers and smiling widely. Although Derrick had perverse motives for accessing the safe room, he did have a deep need to put the entire incident behind him as well, to finally prove to himself that he had overcome his injuries. Passing the boarded-up wall during his rounds had never failed to create a pervasive sense of unease in him.

"Sorry, no can do. Didn't anybody tell you?" Clyde asked in surprise. "Spring Bonnie really _has _left the building. They felt it would be wisest to move him back to the flagship location, the one where I work most of the time, and seal him up in our safe room instead." Frustration clouded Derrick's face as he took in the news. "So he's there, you're here and besides, we have our own security officer and he is _good. _Nothing gets past him, so I can't see how you'd sneak in without getting yourself fired."

* * *

"I can't believe this!" Clyde gasped, seeing for himself the damage caused by an overnight fire at the satellite location only three weeks later. What had happened already seemed clear; someone had slipped inside the unoccupied and unguarded restaurant, made his way to the men's restroom and strewn paper towels and toilet tissue throughout the room before igniting the whole mess.

"You're telling me. If this kinda stuff keeps on happening, we're going to need an overnight security guard, or at least some alarms," fretted Mitch, shaking his head at the blackened, warped metal stalls and the trash can, which had been reduced to a molten puddle of plastic on the tiled floor. At least the fire had been contained to the restroom, but he had a nightmare on his hands that was only just beginning, with smoke damage throughout the building and yet another dreaded call that had to be made to the insurance company.

"Speaking of security guards, be sure to tell Derrick that even though we're going to have to close for a while, we're sending him over to your restaurant," the manager continued, quickly thinking to appease the employee who had graciously never sued for his injuries. "Have your guard reassigned anywhere else you can use him for the time being." He scratched his head. "Oh, and be sure to mention in your incident report that there's no sign of forced entry. Isn't that strange?"


	7. You'll See Some Crazy Stuff, Man

_1982_

"So, welcome to my humble abode," Clyde said, leading Derrick and Marjorie around the flagship restaurant. "This is where it all began, the very first Freddy Fazbear's Pizza in the franchise after we bought out the diner. It shouldn't take much getting used to since the layout's almost identical to your place."

As they passed the sealed-off entrance to the safe room, he leaned in close to Derrick, winking. "Don't even _think_ about sneaking in there. Our watchman, Hermie, may be reassigned to food prep for the time being and he's none too thrilled about it, but once a security guard, always a security guard, I guess, and he's still busting folks for breaking the rules." He laughed reluctantly. "Not long before you arrived, he stormed right out of the kitchen and confiscated my smokes for lighting up too close to the non-smoking end of the dining area, but I'm trying to quit anyway. Maybe I had it coming."

As much as Clyde respected Hermie, who was by far the most dedicated employee in the franchise, he found himself intimidated by the man, as he sensed most of his fellow workers were. He had left his story short and amusing, but in truth, the brawny guard had been quite an imposing presence as he'd burst through the double swinging doors of the kitchen, his apron snapping against his thick legs with each purposeful stride he had taken, and had relieved the training coordinator of both the cigarette dangling from his mouth and the rest of the pack from his shirt pocket before he had even realized what was happening, then crushed them mercilessly under his boot. It had been an unsettling experience, to say the least.

* * *

Holding his chunky, budget-model cell phone to his ear, Mike broke into a wide grin as Randy greeted him, no doubt unaware the pizzeria had once relied on training messages made in similar fashion over the phone system. Wherever the entrepreneur had retreated to make his phone call, it was immediately apparent he had celebrated the near-completion of his horror attraction in typical fashion. His sobriety had been a short-lived phenomenon, as evidenced by the drawling, surfer-dude dialect he seemed to revert to by default. The young man rambled on with well-deserved pride in his voice about the discoveries he had made over the weekend, oblivious to the fact that Mike had been part of the crew that he'd hired to salvage the fixtures from the original pizzeria and unload them into the storage trailer.

Mike found Randy's unrestrained enthusiasm for what was shaping up to be his first successful project downright infectious, but he raised a protest when he suggested a workaround for the attraction's lack of animatronics.

"Haha," he cut in sarcastically, the creaky desk chair rocking with his laughter. "For a minute there, I actually thought you said you were going to make me wear a furry suit and pretend I'm some frightening animatronic. _That_ is where I draw the line, my friend, so you'd better look harder for your robots!" Kneeling in his office by a large box overbrimming with parts from the disassembled animatronics, he rummaged through it, doing an quick inventory and finding at least some remnant of every character in the history of the pizza chain. Feeling a twinge of guilt for leading Randy on when there was virtually no chance of uncovering an intact animatronic, he fell silent, unsure of what else to say in encouragement.

His young boss returned the laugh. "Fine, no fursuit for you, then. You'd make a much better security guard anyway. Like, seriously, in case I didn't say it earlier, you _totally_ look the part." Mike stifled a chuckle at his observation before Randy suddenly dropped a bombshell he had never seen coming, boasting he had gotten into contact with an architect who had remembered a boarded-up, forsaken "extra room" in one of the buildings.

Mike's fingers gripping his phone went numb as his mind flashed back to how close he had been to taking a sledgehammer to the mysterious plywood wall in the derelict restaurant just the previous week. Maybe he'd been on to something after all, but what did Randy expect to _find_ in there? _Between the characters at Jeremy's old restaurant and those at mine, there shouldn't _be_ any animatronics unaccounted for,_ he reasoned, trying to reassure himself that his boss would likely uncover nothing of importance in whatever lay beyond that waterlogged sheet of wood.

Calming somewhat by the time Randy fretted about the marginal and faulty equipment he had been forced to make do with, the security guard didn't lend much credo to his warning about faulty ventilation. They had already discussed the pervasive moldy odor in the attraction, but Mike had his suspicions as to exactly why his boss might have seen, in his own words, some "crazy stuff," and he guessed it had nothing to do with bad air flow. The last time he had checked, a few airborne mildew spores were hardly hallucinogenic.

With a final wish for good luck, Randy groggily signed off for the night, and alone at last in the horror attraction, Mike leaned back in his old desk chair, not having expected the odd feeling of peace that overcame him but welcoming it just the same. He had initially feared the spookhouse would be a celebration of macabre events best left in the past, but somehow he had successfully diverted its creator to make something that would not disgrace the legacy of the children who had lost their lives at the pizzeria.

The contents of the defunct restaurants had instead been reworked into something that had a true potential to be positive, something kids could enjoy again even after the closing of the pizzeria. After all, dark ride attractions were all about facing one's worst fears, and countless children would spend their summer vacations gathering up the courage to race through the darkened hallways, screaming in surprise at the backlit character masks around the corridors, perhaps, but proving to themselves they could make it through all the same and gaining an empowering sense of confidence when they successfully reached the exit. Maybe the whole thing really wasn't so different from his otherwise inexplicable love of roller coasters and other thrill rides.

Imagining the young guests filing past his office, maybe giving a grateful wave to the pseudo-security guard charged with protecting them, filled Mike with a strange sense of pride. Even if he would only be masquerading as a guard, in his new position he just might find the success and respect that had evaded him in the past. Before the weekend, he hadn't seen any point in staying on at the fright attraction once its construction had been completed so rapidly, but now he realized that everything had happened for a reason, and he had been drawn to this place by no accident.

"I don't know what I did to finally deserve this, but thank you all the same." Bowing his head, he uttered his barely-audible expression of gratitude, at last finding the long-awaited sense of closure that had eluded him for half a decade. He could now work on putting the past behind him, but there was someone else who had fared far worse than him over the years, and that individual deserved the same inner peace he had found. Mike reached again for his phone, feeling Jeremy Fitzgerald needed to see this for himself.

* * *

_1982_

The fire of hatred had stayed alive in Derrick's heart over the years, stoked every now and then by the occasional insult, real or merely perceived, delivered his way. He had given the wildly screaming children a wide berth as he made his rounds through the pizzeria, relieved when the hour had grown late and the youngest, most unruly ones had finally been hauled home by their folks.

The parents were _entirely_ too good at protecting their little ones, he fretted, pacing through the near-empty dining area, occasionally stopping to set upright a fallen chair or retrieve a forgotten arcade token from the floor. His malevolent plans had been constantly thwarted by the restaurant's former security guard, who had proven to be just as vigilant as Clyde had warned. Every time the two had crossed paths, Hermie had fixed him with a disapproving scowl, no doubt deeply resenting seeing a temporary worker performing the duties that he sorely missed. To make matters worse, the training manager also had an annoying tendency to pop in on him unexpectedly, usually clutching some mindless company memo that he was all too eager to share.

Deciding he had waited long enough to set his twisted scheme in motion, the security guard had eventually given up on trying to lure away the youngest, most gullible children as he'd originally plotted, but the only costume available to him to carry out his wicked plans would still serve its purpose. He passed once again by the curtain that marked off the Pirate Cove, an arcade and play area with its own seafaring fox animatronic mascot. Catching the faint glow of a cigarette far beyond the area that was supposed to be closed and off-limits by this late hour, his face twisted into a deviant mask of delight as he peered in at the five youths who had slipped past the drawn curtain for some rebellious, delinquent fun. He had been monitoring them all night even if they had no idea they were being watched and were convinced they had gotten one over on the security guard.

It was perfect, he thought, watching a boy carve some initials into the side of an arcade cabinet while his friends stood nearby laughing and joking in hushed tones. With no adults remaining in the building, their parents either didn't know the group had converged on the kiddie pizza parlor for the night or they didn't care. Having set the first step of his plan in place during his recent break, it was too late to back out now even if he had wanted to, and he only had to wait for the right moment.

* * *

"Damn." Quitting smoking was far harder than he'd expected, Clyde thought, gazing cross-eyed at the crumpled cigarette between his lips, tobacco spilling out hopelessly from the ripped paper sleeve. Out on his last break of the night, he wandered aimlessly through the darkened parking lot outside the pizzeria, kicking along a chunk of asphalt that had broken loose from the pavement. Hoping he had another pack stashed in his car, he turned the corner to the narrow aisle of employee parking behind the restaurant, coming to an abrupt halt at the sight that met his eyes.

* * *

"Well, isn't this just great," growled the guard-turned-kitchen-worker, who looked even more formidable than usual, with his apron liberally stained with tomato sauce from the dozens of pizzas he had labored through his entire shift to assemble. Hermie shook his head at the trio of cars belonging to the skeleton crew of workers who still remained on duty at this late hour, sullenly taking inventory of the broken windshields on each, from Clyde's hatchback to his own pickup and even that luxury sedan, done up in a ridiculous shade of lavendar, that the replacement security guard claimed had been an inheritance from a late grandmother.

"Yeah, just great," Clyde grumbled by his side, hankering for a cigarette worse than ever. "I don't suppose you have much beyond minimal insurance, either? This will take _forever_ to replace on my wages." He slumped dejectedly to the curb, resting his chin on his palm and unable to tear his eyes from the pitiful damage to his car. "Ugh, the drive home should be fun. Nothing like wind right in your face and busted glass all over the front seat, right?"

Hermie regarded the training manager with sympathy, struggling inwardly with the decision to explain his actions earlier that day, and finally spoke. "Since we're in this together, I might as well say I'm sorry for scaring you witless out there in the dining area, but I hate seeing a young person destroy his health with those coffin nails." He looked down at the mauled cigarette abandoned on the curb, his voice growing vaguely softer. "It kind of hits close to home. My own brother..." His voice trailed off, but his message had been clear enough.

"I'm so sorry," Clyde said, only guessing at Hermie's pain. "'S'okay, maybe I needed that after all anyway." He laughed awkwardly. "Guess I can't smoke 'em if I don't got 'em, and you took care of that for me. So anyway, which one of us is going to be the lucky fellow who gets to tell Derrick about this? The last time I checked, he doesn't take bad news very well."

* * *

"Hey, you guys had better scram, this place is about to close and that security guard is on his way!" His true identity hidden inside the long-forgotten costume of Fredbear, easily enough retrieved from the backstage room now that Hermie and Clyde had been mercifully distracted, Derrick had taken on the role of a youthful performer trying to help his peers escape trouble.

"Uh, do I know you, from school or something?" asked one boy doubtfully, giving a lazy roll of his eyes. "Forget it, I don't care _who_ you are under that dopey costume, and I couldn't care less about getting yelled at by that sorry security dork. What's he gonna do, limp in here and bust us?"

Derrick's fury rose to a simmer at the insulting reference to his injured leg, but he willed himself to stay calm, ever mindful of the hair-trigger spring locks that were mounted inside his fellow performer's old costume and how incredibly easily they could be set off.

"Guys," he pleaded, his voice rising with false urgency, "I'm not joking, he's on his way and you're really better off leaving right now, or you'll probably get banned for life." Tugging open the curtain, he gestured frantically to the backstage room. "Trust me, there's a fire exit on the other end of that door; you could sneak out and never get noticed."

Reconsidering the offer of help, the leader of the group gave an appreciative nod. "Then again, maybe we will. Thanks, you flea-bitten bear." He crinkled his nose in displeasure. "But once we're outta here, take a bath already. Your nasty costume _stinks."_ With a sharp jerk of his hand, he gestured for the others to follow him, beating a quick exit toward the backstage.

Derrick slid inside noiselessly after them and bolted the door, delighting in their confusion as the kids fumbled in the darkness looking for an exit that wasn't there.

_You think you're going to escape this one, but you can't._


	8. Your Chance to be a Real Hero

_Author's Note: This and future chapters deal with a character who has suffered a traumatic brain injury, and while every attempt was made to write his condition with sensitivity, one of the ways he deals with his trauma is through humor. His jokes about his injury should not be misinterpreted as disrespectful to anyone with a similar condition._

_Also, this was mentioned in a note on my other FNaF fanfiction, but Mike Schmidt's feelings of failure, career-wise, were not in any way influenced by Scott Cawthon's recent "Make a Difference" message on his Steam forum, in which he mentioned working various entry-level jobs and not feeling successful prior to creating FNaF. The early chapters of this fanfiction that established Mike's history long predate Scott's message._

* * *

_1982_

"Well, I've got to say, he seems to be taking this _remarkably_ well," Hermie whispered to Clyde, casting a wary eye on their coworker as he surveyed the damage to his car with a shocking level of indifference instead of the pure rage they'd expected. The training coordinator didn't reply, instead walking up to Derrick and placing a hand on his shoulder in concern.

"Uh, hey, man? You've been sorta quiet since we had to break the bad news to you, are you _sure _you're okay?" When the officer turned toward him, the distracted smile on his flushed face made the younger man shudder. Derrick had trudged through his shifts lately with such a lack of enthusiasm that his sudden bliss was downright unnerving.

"I'll live. This day has gone so well that some pointless vandalism isn't about to ruin it." The guard's chest rose and fell unevenly with his erratic breathing, but his mysterious grin never faded.

"But...your car. Man, if I drove something half that nice, I'd be a lot more steamed about it than you seem to be." Clyde frowned at his coworker's visage, which was mottled with discoloration, giving him the same purple-flecked appearance he'd witnessed only once before, on the fateful day of his spring-lock injury. "Maybe we'd better get you inside and sit you down. I-I think you might be going into shock." Derrick cuffed him lightly across the back in reprimand.

"Try not to be a worry-wart for once! I told you, I'm fine. Just dandy. I was just scrambling to make my final rounds for the night and make sure everything was in its place," he insisted, aware his labored breathing had not gone unnoticed. "At any rate, I'm nearly done, so just head home and let me take care of closing up the building. Now scram!"

* * *

With the stub of a cigarette clenched between his teeth and splinters of particleboard caught in his wayward hair, Randy let his sledgehammer drop to the floor of the derelict pizzeria, having just gained entrance to the extra room whose existence he had only recently learned about.

The building's architect, who had long since retired but had gamely agreed to escort the young entrepreneur to the pizzeria, coughed behind his dust mask, scowling at the sorry condition of the structure that, in the prime of his career, he had meticulously planned down to every floorboard. The former manager of the pizzeria must have been delusional about the future of his business if he'd refused to sell the vacant building off for another purpose back when it had still been serviceable, but rumor had it he had steadfastly refused what few offers he'd received on the dilapidated property, preferring instead to let it backslide into a wasteland. His reasons for finally permitting its few remaining fixtures, salvageable or otherwise, to be sold were unknown; perhaps he had finally grown to need the money badly enough.

"Now son, I know you're burning to get in there, but I'm going to say this one more time," Mel cautioned. "That young fellow from the restaurant who used to talk like he was a manager - well, I reckon he's not so young anymore - he just called me up out of the blue one day, asking for advice on the best way to seal up these extra rooms. I told him his bosses should be sensible and find another use for them, especially after they paid a mint to have them included in the blueprints in the first place, but he insisted that's what they wanted, and then he refused to say anything else, like he was afraid he'd get in trouble." Mel frowned at the cigarette stub Randy ground into the floor with his heel. "Just between you and me, usually when a company goes to such lengths to hide something like that, it's bad news. Chemical waste or something else they'd love to keep hidden forever, though I can't imagine a pizzeria generating such stuff. Still, maybe that's why the owner refused to sell this place. It was cheaper to write it off as a loss than to pay the fees to remediate whatever he stowed in there. I'm grasping at straws trying to think of another reason."

Realizing he was talking to Randy's back as the younger man pressed ahead inattentively, he raised his voice in warning. "You may legally own the contents of this building, but so help it, if there's anything toxic back there, you and I are just going to replace the panel and pretend we never found it, and leave the demolition crew to deal with it, if that day ever comes. The last thing you want is to become the not-so-proud owner of a chemical waste depository or something."

"Whoa, look at this grody rabbit!" Randy exclaimed in oblivious glee, proving Mel's words had gone unheeded. "Check it out, it's positively _nasty._ I can't believe we actually found one. _How_ long did you say this room was walled off, thirty years? Who would have guessed this guy was back there all that time?" He was crouching next to the sprawled form of what appeared to be a long-forgotten animatronic, its fur grotesquely discolored from years of dampness and neglect. Elongated, hare-like ears were the only clue to its identity as any particular animal species, and its facemask had receded around the inner workings of the suit, giving its visage the appearance of a withered skull.

Mel grit his teeth and forced a laugh, relieved to find the rest of the room empty of anything formidable. "I'd consider that a health hazard right there, but since you said you wanted robots for your ride's theme, I guess this makes your day, hmm?" Performing a precursory search of the room, he was stunned to find absolutely nothing that would have warranted sealing it off into oblivion.

"It more than makes my day, this is going to make my whole horror attraction!" Randy cried, prodding the character with the toe of his sneaker. He beamed at the older man. "Hey, thanks! You've helped out a ton today, so if you ever want to tour the attraction and see this guy in his new home, just give them my name at the entrance, because you just earned yourself free admission for life!" Exhilarated, he bent down and clutched the limp animatronic under its arms, trying to heft it onto the dolly he'd brought just in case the room yielded the exact find he'd been hoping for. Abruptly dropping the rabbit character back to the floor, he rubbed his arms briskly, trying to ward off the sharp chill that had washed over him.

_Kid, no! You don't want him to come back!_

"Hey, did you say something?" Randy asked Mel, who shook his head. The entrepreneur shrugged, inwardly scolding himself for overindulging in his vices. _Maybe I should cut back just a little bit, _he mused, certain he had just heard a voice raised in stern warning.

* * *

_1982_

"Hello. Hello?" Clyde began in his best authoritative tone, depressing a button on the eight-track recorder. "Uh, this company-wide memo pertains to a product recall, and employees across all locations are required to sign off verifying that they are aware of the new policy." He winced at the strange array of items in front of him before beginning his message in earnest.

"It has come to the attention of Fazbear Entertainment that "Bonnie's Rockout Guitar," which was a premium available for 5,000 tickets at our prize counters from opening day in 1979 until earlier this month, presents a formidable danger to children. Specifically, the metal wire strings can easily separate from the toy instrument if it is damaged, and sixteen incidents of laceration to children's fingers have resulted." Shaking his head at the remains of a shattered red plastic guitar on his desk with its strings bent crazily in all directions, he rested a hand on the stack of injury reports that had been filed over the years at the restaurants, but had only been recently brought to his attention.

"The majority of these injuries can be attributed to children intentionally smashing the toy, a practice Fazbear Entertainment does not condone and denies any responsibility for." He smirked at the particular guitar before him, which he had confiscated the day before from an overly rambunctious child who had raised his newly-acquired prize over his head, Pete Townsend-style, and dashed it to pieces on the floor. The training manager's voice lowered as he continued. "However, some of the injuries have been deemed accidents, and for this reason, the company is voluntarily recalling this item. Should any child be seen with a Rockout Guitar on the premises, he or she should be escorted to the prize counter and offered any suitable replacement toy within the 5,000-ticket value limit. All recalled items should be returned to the flagship location immediately. Thank you, and as always, remember to smile. A child's happiness today may depend on you."

"There," Clyde said, reaching out to end the recording and inadvertently scratching his arm across one of the bent guitar strings, drawing back from the sudden jolt of pain. Fixing his manager, who was seated across from his desk, with a weak grin, he silently mouthed _I told you so._

"That'll work," Nathan Faz said casually, leaning back in his chair and crossing his hands over his vest. "Duplicate that tape for all the locations and we'll play it before the start of business tomorrow." He noticed his training coordinator seemed unusually agitated.

"It's too little, too late," Clyde suddenly cut in, his voice firm and defiant. Faz blinked, unused to hearing anything but complete agreement from the worker he had come to think of as his right-hand man at the flagship restaurant. "You heard me," he continued, fanning out the accident reports across his desk, shoving aside the shards of jagged plastic that had once been a toy. "Sixteen reports in three years, and those are only the ones that made an official complaint. Who knows how many kids got sliced up at home, but their folks never called here to complain?"

He leaned his head on his hands. "Why did it take three years and that many injuries to yank this hazardous thing off the shelves? If all these reports hadn't been deep-sixed and it was up to me, I'd have done the recall right at the start of all this." He scowled at the broken guitar. "Seventy-five lousy cents. That's exactly what each one of those cost us to buy at wholesale. It wouldn't have bankrupted us to pull them off the market earlier."

"Clyde..." Faz began, sensing the young worker's agitation. "I don't think this is just about a toy guitar. You've been under a lot of stress lately, with all that's been going on around here-" The training coordinator fixed him with a stare.

"I-I want to work security," he blurted out. "All these rumors in the last two weeks about those five missing kids, that they were last seen hanging out here...and that night with the vandalism to our vehicles and then Derrick's car getting stolen the _same_ night?" Sweat was forming on his brow as he enumerated the allegations and crimes that had plagued his workplace over a fortnight. "This should be the safest place in the world for kids and families, and I want to make it that way again. You've got to trust me, I think I could do a lot more as an officer than I can here behind this desk. _Anyone_ can make training tapes." Clyde avoided mentioning his inner disappointment over being overlooked for any type of promotion over the last three years.

"Sorry, no can do," Faz said flippantly. "Your services are needed here, and please don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not sure you're cut out to be a security officer the way someone like Hermie or Derrick is. Guards have to be assertive, maybe even just shy of aggressive, and I've seldom heard you so much as raise your voice. Leave the job to those who are naturals at it." He snorted. "Since you mentioned it, though, I wasn't shocked to hear about the unfortunate loss of Derrick's car. It's hardly uncommon knowledge that he left the keys in it more often than not and the windows rolled down, even if I warned him against that practice. He might as well have posted a big "STEAL ME" sign on the windshield; it was a theft waiting to happen."

"Hasn't _anyone_ else connected the dots yet?" Derrick cut in, leaning insolently against the door frame and leaving the two men to wonder how much of the conversation he'd overheard. "Five kids - teens, really - last seen at our place, and my car _just happened _to go missing just before I could lock up for the night. Isn't it obvious that we really have some juvenile car thieves on our hands?" He narrowed his eyes accusingly at Clyde. "And what's this? Now you're trying to steal my job out from under me?"

"N-no, I'd never try to do that!" the training coordinator exclaimed, backpedaling rapidly and tugging anxiously at his shirt collar, which suddenly felt too tight. "I'd only take the security gig if a position opened up."

"Don't count on it, chum. The restoration's nearly done over at my restaurant and Hermie hasn't exactly been subtle with the hints that he's more than eager to have his old security job back once I've vacated it." Derrick's face twisted into its characteristic, cruel sneer. "In the meantime, I just saw a kid running past holding one of those dinky little guitar prizes, and I think his shoes were untied as well. This is your chance to be a real hero, sport!"

Clyde rose stiffly to his feet, clutching his trademark clipboard to his chest and leaving without a word, but the silent hurt in his eyes, caused by someone he had considered a close friend, said it all. Once his young assistant had left, Faz glowered at Derrick in disapproval.

"Now I don't pretend to have any idea what _that_ was about, exactly, but why did you have to go and insult him like that? You should ask yourself why you need to be so sadistic." He chose his words cautiously, aware he was dealing with an employee the corporation treated with the utmost care, considering he could have rightfully sued for extensive damages years before but had opted not to. "I'm just saying, Clyde's a good kid."

"Exactly," said Derrick, sinking into the training manager's vacated desk chair and boldly resting his feet on the abandoned paperwork. "He's a kid. Not exactly security material when he's still fawning over the stage shows right next to the half-pints, right?" Awaiting a response that never came, he changed the subject. "But anyway, I paid you a visit because, lately, the animatronics have been growing restless, if that's even possible. Aren't they supposed to go into sleep mode once the brats have left for the night? Instead, they follow me while I'm helping the closing crew, getting in the way and generally making nuisances of themselves."

Faz's chair groaned in protest as he leaned forward, peering curiously at his security guard. "That's strange; they _are_ supposed to return to the stage and enter inactive mode if there are no kids around. They can't be completely shut down or the servomechanisms in their limbs would lock up; we discovered that early on while our new characters were still in the testing phase." Leaning in close as if sharing a great secret, he added, "that Spring Bonnie character that mauled you? If it makes you feel any better, his servos are almost certainly done for and he'll never move again after two years and counting in that safe room.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to collect the security tapes from around the time those kids were last seen. Law enforcement requested a look at 'em and I agreed, if only it will get them off our backs and make it clear once and for all that our establishment had nothing to do with this weirdness."

* * *

"Hey, Germ!" Mike almost shouted his long-time friend's detested nickname into the phone, knowing he was as much of a night-owl as himself and would hardly be bothered by the odd hour of his call. When the party on the other end picked up, the customary rush of heavy metal assaulted Mike's ears.

"Schmidt! What's up? Still looking for a respectable job?" Jeremy Fitzgerald's happiness upon hearing from his friend was all too obvious.

"No, I finally found one, and you'll have to see this for yourself. Believe it or not, right now I'm behind the controls of a brand-new horror house at Krayzee Action Park. It's based on all the legends behind the Freddy Fazbear's restaurants, but if you're ready for this, it's actually respectful and doesn't exploit your injury or the memory of those poor kids who bought it there before you and I were suckered into working for the chain." Mike bit his lip while Jeremy processed the news. "It's nothing but a bunch of scary animatronic stuff, minus the actual robots." He sneered at the large cardboard box overflowing with the dismembered pieces of the toy animatronics that had plagued Jeremy's nights at the short-lived incarnation of the pizzeria.

"For real? I _do_ wanna see that," Jeremy insisted in his usual metalhead drawl. He placed one hand subconsciously over the tattered bandanna that he wore bound over his head, his fingers tracing the scarring pattern embedded in his skin, and beneath that, the steel plate that had been used to restore his skull after he had nearly lost his life to an errant animatronic's crushing jaws.

"Not tonight, I'm still learning the ropes myself," Mike advised, ever cautious of his friend's safety. Though Jeremy had made an incredible recovery, driven by his unstoppable determination, Mike still felt overly protective of him, aware that he sometimes acted impulsively and would probably think nothing of cruising late at night along the unfamiliar and twisting backroads that led to the amusement park. Coughing harshly, Mike fumbled for the carafe of coffee he'd made, his head suddenly and inexplicably swimming.

"How about I pick you up tomorrow?" he suggested groggily, scrambling to find an excuse to take care of the driving. "It's just that my boss might not be thrilled about a second party joining me, so we'll arrive in my car, and once he splits for the night I'll sneak you in. Deal?"

"Count me in, but are you sure you're all right? Even over the line, your voice sounds sorta wonky," the former guard replied, shouting over the bass from his stereo that left his windows rattling in their frames. Mike assured him all was well and abruptly hung up the phone, but not before muttering something about a ventilation error, his voice less than confident.

"Huh, wonder what _that_ was all about," Jeremy said to the empty room as he replaced the handset on the receiver. He was used to Mike being watchful over him, yet if he hadn't been concerned about getting his closest friend in trouble with his new boss, he would have driven straight to the amusement park himself just to make sure Mike was okay.


	9. Bad Air and Bad Blood

Following his sudden unemployment and the demise of the once-thriving pizza palace franchise, Mike Schmidt had unintentionally become something of a historian of the ill-fated business. In an effort to distract himself from the misery of failing at yet another job, he had occupied himself doing as much discreet research as possible, poring over computerized records and even microfiche film in the local library's archives and eventually finding the news articles that confirmed the local legends about the multiple - and ultimately unsolved - murders that had taken place at the very location where he had worked, decades before he had set foot in the pizzeria.

Growing more than mildly obsessed and at last finding a purpose, he had assembled a clip-file of every piece of media he could find related to the pizzeria chain, scraping coins together to photocopy anything relevant, including the circa-1987 announcements that the "vintage children's pizzeria" would be reopening in a new and improved location, then the terrible news of another round of unsolved murders and the traumatic injury a security guard had suffered in the midst of a birthday party, resulting in the immediate closure of the new restaurant almost before it had gotten established. It had been no accident that he'd later sought out to interview Jeremy, who had since recovered, surprisingly developing a rare true friendship along the way and finding a kindred spirit who wanted answers as much as he did.

* * *

After taking Mike's call, Jeremy Fitzgerald returned his attention to the bass guitar partially disassembled on the coffee table before him, all while the windowpanes in his century-old farmhouse rattled violently in their frames against the onslaught of heavy metal from the speakers that towered over him from either side of his sofa. Years after healing from his gruesome injury, he was still left with very skewed, unpredictable sleep patterns that had made daytime employment virtually impossible, but he'd adapted by pursuing his dream of repairing stringed instruments, often in the dead of night when he felt he worked best. In the early years his small business had struggled, but with each completed job he had gained a satisfied customer and more confidence that he was capable of overcoming the setbacks life had dealt him. Every tiny wire string he delicately twisted around the bridge pin of a damaged guitar reminded him of the way his wounded brain was also rewiring itself, making new connections to replace what he had once feared had been stolen from him forever.

Though over thirty years later others still regarded him with a strange mix of sympathy and morbid curiosity, Jeremy could brush it off, as he was content with his life. He adored his wife, even if they led somewhat separate lives, yet he relished the freedom to live like a bachelor without any close neighbors, blasting his music at all hours and leaving guitars in various states of repair strewn about the house during her frequent travels. He enjoyed a great relationship with his grown son, and playing occasional gigs at dive bars still held the same thrill it had in high school.

In the aftermath of Mike's phone call, though, he soon found that his heart just wasn't into the project that lay before him, and for fear of doing more harm than good to a customer's cherished vintage Fender bass, he pushed the entire coffee table aside with one combat-boot-clad foot, reclining on the battered sofa with his hands behind his head. Even if Mike had assured him there were no animatronics in the re-creation of Freddy's he had been hired to watch over, the vaguely ominous way his friend had signed off had stirred memories he had never wished to revisit.

Jeremy's brief stint at the short-lived "new" pizzeria had been pure hell, an insane tempest of activity that involved no less than eleven animatronics to fend off for hours on end, with ridiculous makeshift work-arounds to distract the restless creations. As a young man in desperate need of the money, he had nonetheless flourished at the job for six nights, performing almost on auto-pilot, and when Clyde, his company's training coordinator and a personal acquaintance, had begged him to work the following day guarding a children's birthday party, he had willingly accepted the double shift.

That day would forever be burned in his memory, and that of everyone in town, as The Bite of '87. It hadn't been enough to kill him, but it had led to the eventual death of Clyde Miller, whose intense guilt over the incident had left him determined to never put another worker in harm's way again. Sadly, he had seen no other way to keep others safe than by naively taking on the night shift security job himself when the franchise reopened in its original location, and then one terrible day years later, long after they'd lost touch, Jeremy had read the missing-person report in the newspaper. A mere five-line item on the police blotter, it had briefly described his old friend's appearance, mentioned he had last been seen at work and that he had been reported as appearing "despondent." As a former guard himself, Jeremy had immediately known his true fate.

"Good luck out there, Mike," he said to the empty room when the CD in his stereo finally ended. I sure hope that wasn't _your_ "Night Four" call.

* * *

From the moment Mike had settled into the mock-up of a security office, the dimmed mood lighting, the pervasive mold stains covering virtually everything, and most of all the wide glass window before his desk that gave him a view of the nearest hallway outside, had worked together to give him the impression that he was trapped in some strange, damp terrarium, albeit one that hadn't been cared for properly and was being overtaken by algae.

Cursing as the coffee he poured mostly bypassed the mug altogether and streamed across the desk, he set the carafe down with an unsteady hand and gulped down the small amount that he had managed not to spill, finding that it did him no good. Mike clamped a palm to his forehead, feeling lightheaded and trying to recall what little useful information might have been contained in Randy's rambling, almost incoherent phone call. Overhead, a strobing red light intermittently bathed the room in a ghastly red glow, while an ominous electric buzz droned on from ceiling-mounted speakers. The claxon seemed insultingly unnecessary, as if he really needed a second clue that something had gone wrong when the room was already bathed in red light, and the strobes themselves stirred up bad memories.

_He'd been thrown roughly onto the hood of the police cruiser, staring up at the mesmerizing flashing red and blue lights on the roof overhead as his hands were cuffed behind him. He scarcely listened to his rights being read to him - not that he hadn't heard those before - as he was dragged to his feet. His eyes were locked on the windows of the shuttered pizzeria that he had returned to in hopes of peering inside one final time to prove to himself that the animatronics who had haunted him had finally run out of power and shut down once and for all. Before he could get a real glimpse of anything inside the building, though, two cruisers had squealed into the lot and he had found himself trying in vain to come up with an excuse for why he might be lurking around a vacant building with a flashlight at two in the morning._

_Oh, right. Bad air,_ he recalled, pulling himself back to the present. The guard attempted to roll his chair to where he had been told the maintenance panel had been installed, but its casters had long since rusted in place, so he rose unsteadily, finding a monitor affixed to the left wall, where it appeared to have been hardwired using the same less-than-expert electrician's skills his boss had confessed to employing elsewhere in the attraction. Raising the monitor with a sharp click, he squinted at the simplistic control system that had been programmed. There were only three systems, cameras, audio and ventilation, and even in his foggy state of mind Mike knew which required an immediate reset.

Breathing hard and leaning for support against the slimy wall behind him, he watched the square white cursor scroll across the screen, which hopefully meant the reboot was in progress, and then his hair began fluttering as a blessed stream of fresh air crossed the room from a series of air ducts overhead. Mike slid heavily down the wall in relief, relishing every unpolluted draw of air he could take in and hardly caring about the filth transferring onto his uniform shirt.

_I should have known this job wouldn't be total cake, _he finally recognized. Still, a faulty ventilation system that could probably be fixed in due time hardly compared to fending off four crazed animatronics.

* * *

_1982_

Chief Carswell tapped his ballpoint pen on the table, his eyes never leaving the anxious young man seated across from him. Of all the Fazbear Entertainment employees he had interviewed regarding the unexplained disappearance of the five local teenagers, this one had his coworkers entirely outmatched when it came to nervous fidgeting. The security tapes seized from the pizzeria had revealed a deeply disturbing image, that of a costumed bear, a character that had supposedly been retired years before from the lineup, barely visible as it slipped inside a small room just offstage. The missing teenagers were entirely absent from the hours of footage he'd scrutinized, but the tapes were far from complete, as though someone had deliberately realigned the closest security camera so it would fail to capture critical images.

"Mister Miller, I understand that as the training coordinator, you would have a roster of employees who were certified to wear these spring-lock costumes, and I understand that you trained them in the proper wearing of the suits yourself, is that correct?" he asked, receiving a deferential "yessir" from Clyde, who was clearly accustomed to obeying authority. "Could you name for me, again, all those who were capable of performing in these costumes?"

"Uh, well, there's Derrick; he was a Spring Bonnie performer at the other location until his leg injury, but now he's a security guard. And Marjorie, but she hasn't worn the Fredbear suit since the day of the accident," he added, thinking of his coworker's natural strength, poise and grace, carried over from her days as a gymnast in high school, that had served her well during her time as a performer. "Over here, we had our own rotating crew of three performers, but all of them have moved on to other jobs after we put the spring-lock suits away two years ago. That is, except for Hermie," he suddenly recalled. "He wanted to stay on, so he trained as a security guard."

"What about you?" the chief asked gruffly. "You might not have performed on stage, but surely you've worn the suits if you were charged with instructing others on their use." Clyde gulped at the insinuation.

"Yessir, I did put on the costumes, on my boss's orders. They're very tricky to get just right, and not for beginners." His mind flashed back to the afternoons that had found him kneeling before a tape recorder in the safe room, halfway dressed in a costume and probably resembling some strange type of rabbit-human hybrid, pausing after each step to explain into the microphone how to retract each spring-lock mechanism as well as avoid its accidental release.

"Tell me more about this Hermie." Carswell leaned forward on his knuckles, scrutinizing the other man's face. In his mind, Marjorie was the least likely suspect; her shift typically ended some time before the restaurant closed for the night and, biased or not, he had a hard time imagining a woman in her early twenties ambushing an entire group of teenagers barely younger than herself and hiding the evidence.

Derrick had been irksomely surly during his interview and unsympathetic to the crisis facing his workplace, even attempting to redirect the conversation to the theft of his car, as if that somehow outweighed the disappearance of five minors. His interrogation had been lengthy, yet after reluctantly dismissing him the chief couldn't help but notice how stiffly he rose and limped out on his injured leg, which Carswell had been told had nearly been crushed beyond repair by one of the recalled spring-lock costumes. The bear mascot in the surveillance footage, by contrast, had walked with a swift, steady gait.

The skittish and youthful training coordinator, his hand shaking as he reluctantly reached for the employee files he had been asked to provide during the interrogation, was the very picture of apprehensiveness and it seemed almost laughable to imagine him capable of holding steady long enough to commit the heinous crime. Only Hermie, with his impressive strongman's frame and a certain history with the company, remained suspicious in his mind.

Sweat positively dripped into his eyes as Clyde fulfilled the demand, starting out with a vague record of his fellow worker's employment history, which had been nothing short of exemplary. Cringing under the chief's constant glare, he could provide little defense against the pointed questions that followed.

"Hermie very well may have been a valued and dedicated employee, but your coworker Derrick informed me he also had a hot temper. Something about roughing you up badly the very day you brought in his replacement?"

"No!" came Clyde's vehement protest, and when he was met with a stern look of disapproval, he froze in fear, realizing he had just given testimony that had contradicted Derrick's. Feeling his resolve crumble as panic rose, the training coordinator finally cracked, the words tumbling helplessly from his mouth.

"I mean, he did take some cigarettes off me and stomp them into the ground, but he never laid a hand on me; that's not like him. And sure, he made it clear he was sore at me for letting Derrick have his job on a temporary basis-" Carswell cut him off.

"I've also been told he had been prone to violent outbursts before," he suggested, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair, watching the younger man run a hand through his messy fringe of hair, now damp with perspiration.

"Never against another _person,"_ Clyde insisted in a resigned voice. "He did get written up once by Mister Faz for damaging company property. There was an argument in the security office and he grew so upset he stormed out back and punched a big dent in the trash bin that's there to this day." Resenting the way he was being forced to sell out his coworker, he tried to rationalize the incident. "Management wasn't _that_ mad, though. He walked away from what could have been a big fight and hit a rusty old bin instead. How's that any different from the classic 'punch a pillow when you're mad' advice?" When he caught the chief's cold glare, he turned his gaze downward, studying the woodgrain pattern on the table in the interrogation room.

"And is that bin not directly next to the employee parking, where the windshields were broken out of several vehicles the same night the youths disappeared? It seems your coworker was in a persistently foul mood that day."

Exhausted by the barrage of questions, Clyde still weakly tried to defend Hermie, but he already sensed the dread of defeat creeping in. Could _the same man who had eventually calmed down and warned him personally against smoking have gone on a rampage of violence, only stopping after he'd taken five young lives?_ It seemed impossible, but so did the chance that Derrick or Marjorie could have done the same. He knew them, worked alongside them every day.

Carswell regarded the training manager, who by now was resting his face on both palms, his shoulders trembling, and gruffly told him he had no more questions at the time.


	10. We'll Never Hear the End of This

_Author's Note: This chapter is entirely a flashback; Mike and Jeremy's story will continue in the next! Also, this contains some adult content but it's fairly tame. (It's far more what's implied than what actually happens.)  
_

* * *

_1982_

"Think you've got the hang of it yet, Deputy?" Derrick asked in an overdone Western drawl as he and Clyde made their rounds through the pizzeria. His words had their desired effect on the rookie security guard he had been charged with training, who had remained uncharacteristically sullen ever since it had been announced he would be changing positions in the company.

"For crying out loud, would you stop calling me that already?" the former training coordinator pleaded, tugging the brim of the ballcap that was part of his uniform over his flushed face. "So I'm only being made a deputy security officer at the satellite location, at least if it _ever_ reopens, and you get to stay here as chief security officer. Stop rubbing it in already!"

Pausing under a disco ball suspended from the ceiling of the dining area, Clyde glanced upward, seeing thousands of tiny reflections of himself peering back pensively from the mirrored tiles. He was wearing one of Hermie's old uniform shirts, which gaped at the neck and threatened to slide off his much-slimmer frame altogether, and he'd had to fold the fabric over on itself several times just to tuck the shirt in. Though he had been permitted to order a new uniform from the supply catalog, until it would arrive he had resigned himself to feeling like a kid playing dress-up.

"What exactly is eating you, anyway?" Derrick demanded, perplexed at his coworker's irritability. "You finally got what you wanted; I thought you'd be thrilled when Faz did an about-face and announced you could have the job after all."

"You're right, I guess I should be happy," Clyde said, scuffing the rubber sole of his tennis shoe over a piece of chewing gum that had become encrusted in the carpet. "But it makes me heartsick to think about what led to my landing it." Just a week before, he had been onhand to witness the horror of seeing Hermie arrested right at their workplace, and after being charged with the murders of the five missing children, the former guard remained in jail without bond.

_"Do _you think he really did it?" Clyde asked, looking imploringly at his mentor and daring to raise the question for the first time. "I can't see how. Sure, he was rough, but underneath that he seemed like a decent person. I just can't reconcile the crime with the guy we knew."

Derrick slapped a hand to his forehead in disbelief. "Look, if you want to be taken seriously at the satellite location, you've got to drop the whole 'naive kid' act. No offense, but I can tell you always see the good in everyone and you couldn't bring yourself to believe anybody could be capable of anything remotely evil, yet you can't ignore the fact that, what do they call it? - _forensic evidence _\- was found in the backstage room. That's enough for me to believe those kids met with a bad end right here at the restaurant and _he_ had something to do with it. Really, who else could it have been?"

Clyde shrugged helplessly. "I can't even begin to guess. And while it's beyond disturbing to think we might be working alongside a killer if it wasn't Hermie, it's worse to think of him being wrongly accused of the crime."

"Suit yourself, but you _do_ know everyone laughs at you behind your back over this one, right?" Clyde stopped short again, and Derrick was inwardly thrilled he had undermined his confidence in yet another way. "Oh, you _didn't_ know? Yeah, the general consensus is that you're either incredibly clueless or nuts for believing Hermie's innocent. Or both."

"Whatever, let 'em believe what they want. I kinda caught on pretty early that recording safety training tapes for the company wasn't going to win me any popularity contests, anyway," said the rookie officer, glancing around to ensure they were far out of Faz's earshot before pulling a worn leather wallet from the pocket of his jeans and thumbing through its plastic sleeves.

"Just between you and me, though, doesn't this make you have flashbacks about what happened at the diner?" he asked. His eyes stung as he gazed down at the wallet card depicting a soaring angel inside a gilded frame, a memento from his best friend's funeral that had been a painful experience to attend as a teenager. "It's been six years and I still can't believe Buddy was senselessly murdered behind our workplace," he sighed. "Just when I thought I had finally gotten over it, someone victimized more kids here, only this time it's even worse because five lives were lost. It's like someone's targeting these restaurants, or they're cursed."

"It was a coincidence and nothing more," Derrick snapped, turning his head sharply away to avoid looking at the prayer card that Clyde held. "While it may be weird that lightning struck twice at our workplaces, there's no room for superstition in this line of work."

"You're probably right," Clyde conceded. "And I guess I _am_ naive. Until they found the evidence in the backstage room, I really wanted to believe the best-case scenario, that those kids had just impulsively went out for a joyride and they'd come back any day now, maybe with your car a little banged up but nobody would mind because at least they were safe and that's all that mattered."

"Hey, whatever you had to tell yourself," Derrick responded uncaringly. Though he and Clyde had been coworkers at the precursor to the pizzeria, Faz was unaware either man had ever been employed there. Clyde had been paid under the table as the establishment's dishwasher and Derrick doubted he had ever bothered to even obtain a work permit, but he had his own reasons for keeping his employment at Fredbear's Family Diner a well-guarded secret.

* * *

Standing before the mirror in the employee break room, Clyde saw to his appearance with a plastic comb before replacing his ballcap, taking care not to crush the wings of hair that stuck out from either side of his face just under the hat. He was not much for following trends and had kept the same hairstyle from his high school days, but in his mind it suited him well enough and was still reasonably fashionable. Fumbling through his locker for a canister of breath spray, he gagged on the harsh taste of the stuff, its spearmint scent mingling with the strong cologne he'd "borrowed" from Derrick's locker and liberally doused over himself.

The guard-in-training removed a piece of paper from the pocket of his jeans and unfolded it with trembling hands, once more reading the words on the note Marjorie had discretely passed him while he'd made his rounds and still trying to convince himself he hadn't imagined the entire thing.

_Meet me in the backstage room on your next break. I have something to tell you. - M_

The handwriting, executed in a graceful looping style that perfectly suited the young woman behind the penmanship, was inked in pastel blue instead of the company-issued red or black ballpoint pens the wait staff typically used. The former Fredbear performer had never been anything less than affectionate and even playfully flirtatious with him, and yet he'd soon realized she approached all her coworkers with the same warmth, though she was noticeably cautious around Derrick. Clyde had long harbored feelings for her that went beyond mere friendship, but he had been far too shy to act on them and hadn't even allowed himself to entertain the thought that the attraction could have been anything but one-sided.

* * *

"You, uh, wanted to see me?" he asked, pushing open the door to the backstage room and promptly finding himself seized and pulled inside. Marjorie stood before him with her arms crossed over her chest, appearing just as anxious as he felt with visible concern in her deep brown eyes. During her days as a costumed spring-lock performer it had been necessary to wear her hair in flat braids tight against her scalp, but now her hair was pulled into twin textured ponytails.

"Ssh!" she reprimanded, which struck him as an unnecessary gesture because the high volume of the band and at least a hundred screaming children singing along just on the other side of the door would surely drown out any noise he could make. "Nobody saw you slip in here, did they?" Clyde shook his head, explaining that the others no doubt assumed he was out in the parking lot taking his usual smoke break.

"Great." Her face finally lit up in a far less guarded, mysterious smile. "By the way, I overheard some of the jabs Derrick's sent your way, but I just wanted to say that you look good in the uniform and I think you'll make a great security guard. Now like the note said, I have something to tell you, and _only_ you, but first you'll have to, um, lose the shirt."

_Whoa._ His face positively burning, Clyde nonetheless fumbled with the buttons and slid off the garment, standing awkwardly in his undershirt and cringing under the gaze of the many spare animatronic headpieces stacked on the shelves all around him, their empty eyes seemingly locked with disapproval on his unimpressive form. Over the summer he had diligently tried a weight-lifting program, only to see no change to his physique whatsoever and ultimately grow discouraged and abandon his efforts. Forcing himself to brush aside his own discomfort and imagining Marjorie wouldn't want to make all the moves herself, he snaked an arm around her waist and drew in close, only to freeze when her eyes grew wide with surprise.

"Clyde?" she asked, her voice strained as she finally caught the mint on his breath, mixed with the overpowering cologne he had obviously splashed on just before their clandestine meeting. "I'm so sorry, but this isn't what you think at all. I feel lousy for misleading you." As his hand dropped from her waist and he shot her a mortified look of apology, she shook her head at her own failure to foresee how he might have misinterpreted her note and especially her almost-immediate instructions to partially undress.

"I promise this will be worth your time, though. You see, I think I've figured out something, and you're the _only_ one I can trust with what I've found," she continued, trying to save face. Crossing the room to a clothing rack, she flipped through the hangers in search of the garment she'd come across earlier, pushing aside the crisp white collared shirts and pressed slacks worn by the wait staff and the striped referee jerseys used by the arcade's game technicians before finding the lone blue security guard shirt. "Here it is! Try this on for size."

Shrugging into the garment and still lost in confusion, Clyde smoothed a hand over the embroidered name patch. "Hey, this is Hermie's, too! Only it fits better. Thanks!"

"I figured it was an older style; most of those were left behind by former employees," she explained, mentally adding, _but I didn't exactly bring you back here just to give you a more appropriate uniform shirt,_ surprised he had missed the clue.

"Consider that 'Exhibit A,' and here's 'B.' I found it in the break room," she said, pulling out a large photo album she had carefully stashed on a storage shelf and pressing it into Clyde's hands. "I was over at the satellite location when most of these were taken, but surely they're more familiar to you."

The pictures inside the book documented the flagship location from its origins, with the first page containing several glossy shots of a beaming Nathan Faz wielding an oversized pair of scissors to cut a ribbon stretched across the restaurant's front doors on its opening day. The following pages soon gave way to even more lighthearted pictures taken after-hours once the guests had left for the day, with various workers clowning for the camera in every way possible, their arms draped over the shoulders of the amazing spring-lock mascots the pizzeria had acquired.

"Wow, this brings back memories," Clyde admitted. "Ha, that's Jason. He and Shawn and Hermie were our revolving cast of spring-lock performers, though after the suits were retired, only Hermie stayed on, as a security officer." He grinned down at the photo of a lanky man in his early twenties crammed into a coin-operated rocketship ride meant for a child, his long legs pulled up tight to his chest and nearly reaching over his head. Though Jason had tried to maintain a stern expression, the mirthful spark in his eyes suggested he had likely burst into hysterical laughter once the picture had been snapped.

"I really miss those times," the rookie officer said wistfully, Marjorie taking a seat beside him on the table he was leaning against. "You'd never believe half the mischief some of those goofballs got away with, but we were all so carefree in those days, long before the spring-lock injury and the fire and the product recall that management tried to hide and now the missing kids. We really had no clue what lay ahead." When he turned the page, Marjorie sharply seized his wrist.

"That's it!" she exclaimed. "Once I saw _that_ photo, I stopped right there."

"Oh right, that was the nineteenth birthday party they threw for me after work," Clyde remarked, not grasping the significance of the old picture of himself seated before a large sheet cake aglow with candles, his coworkers standing behind him and grinning deviously.

"I must say, even if those were happy times, you look downright apprehensive there," Marjorie said, noting his hesitant smile in the photo, and when she took Clyde's advice to turn the page, she promptly broke down into giggles.

"You poor thing, they smashed your face right into your own cake!" In the "after" picture, the training coordinator was smiling gamely for the camera despite looking vaguely put-out at the frosting covering him, his coworkers a blur of practical jokers in the background, laughing and congratulating each other on their prank. "How's that any way to treat a guy on his birthday?"

"Beats me, but it's kind of a Fazbear Entertainment tradition for the first birthday you celebrate with the company after your date of hire, so just a heads-up when your big day rolls around," Clyde warned jokingly before scratching his head. "Sorry to be so dense, but aside from the comedic value, what's so important about these party pictures?"

When Marjorie drew his attention to _who_ was in the photos, he mentally rehearsed the names: Nathan Faz. Jason. Shawn. Hermie, and a few others who had since moved on to other careers.

"Huh, I almost forgot Hermie used to be a regular stringbean like the rest of us," the rookie officer said, pointing out the younger version of his coworker standing behind him, his hand poised behind his head and ready to shove him toward the cake at the opportune moment.

"Bingo!" Marjorie cried. "He must have really bulked up quickly in just two years, right?"

Clyde nodded. "Once the spring-lock suits were retired he threw himself into the bodybuilding thing and had an enviously high level of success with it. I guess he wanted to be stronger for the security job. Just between you and me, it was rumored he'd gotten more than a little help from steroids, but I never felt it was my business to ask." Marjorie waited for him to grasp the final connection, but he had fallen silent, closing the book of sunnier memories with a sigh. She rose from the table and picked up one of the costume heads from the shelving that ran the length of the room.

"Would you feel safe revisiting old times just once more and putting on my old Fredbear costume?" she gently asked, startling him with the strange request. "The cops seized _that_ one as evidence, but they were both built to the same dimensions." In the weeks since the fire at the satellite location, management had made the decision to store the company's remaining Fredbear costume at the flagship pizzeria, no doubt feeling it wise to remove anything remotely unsafe from the building considering the satellite's track record with disaster.

* * *

_Here I was, thinking we might kiss a little and instead I'm putting on a bear suit,_ thought Clyde, though he had to admit his feelings for Marjorie were so strong that he would have jumped through a flaming hoop at that point, had she only asked. She watched him with trepidation, biting her lower lip as he twisted the hand-crank on the side of the costume he was wearing, expertly withdrawing the interior spring-lock mechanisms until they were a safe distance from his body.

"It still fits!" he joked once he had everything but the headpiece in place. Making a few wisecracks about having kept his girlish figure, he executed a dramatic yet clumsy twirl with his arms held out, showing off for Marjorie's sake before catching himself against the nearby table. "...And that's why they never let me on stage as a performer, thanks to my two left feet. Really, we were all insane back in the day for agreeing to wear these, or at least training others to wear them, in my case." Clyde took a deep breath from exertion, feeling his ribcage brush against the interior of the costume where the mechanisms were recoiled. "I almost forgot that even for a beanpole like me, there's hardly any room to breathe in them." He froze in sudden realization, and Marjorie snapped her fingers in approval.

"Exactly! The Hermie we know couldn't wear that suit today if his life depended on it; he's far too muscular now. You and I, Derrick, Shawn and Jason are all on the extremely lean side, and Hermie once fit that description too. So you tell me how he could possibly have been the one in the suit going after those poor kids."

"Right. There were even physical height and weight restrictions in place for the performers. You're a genius," Clyde said reverently, pulling himself up to sit on the edge of the table amidst the scattered spare parts that made up the animatronics' endoskeletons and feeling a jolt of pure joy when Marjorie settled next to him. "And all this time, you actually believed me when I insisted Hermie had to be innocent. I had no idea."

"I'm going to the cops after work," she vowed. "This will completely exonerate him. They may have confiscated the other suit as evidence, but it's so complicated that I doubt they have any idea how it actually works. I've barely been able to sleep at night, dealing with the rumors that he'd wind up on death row." She shuddered so violently Clyde put a hand lightly on her shoulder out of concern, his eyes full of gratitude for her detective work.

"Hey, Deputy, you in there?" Derrick's grating voice came from the other side of the door, accompanied by sharp knocking. "Break's over, so tell your little animatronic buddies goodbye and get back out here." Clyde and Marjorie exchanged panicked looks, both knowing there would be no way to explain themselves.

"On second thought, maybe this _is_ what you think," Marjorie said, impulsively drawing in close to the astounded rookie officer and dropping her voice to a low whisper. "Just go along with it."

Clyde hardly had to be told twice.

* * *

"What in the name of all that's..." Derrick's jaw dropped once he'd swung open the door and caught sight of his trainee, locked in a passionate kiss with the coworker snuggled on his lap. Crossing his arms over his chest, he laughed condescendingly, causing Marjorie to gasp and pull away slightly from Clyde, whose face had flushed a bright shade of crimson. _"This_ is entirely too rich. You two have been spending your break time making out back here? While you're wearing the _Fredbear_ costume?"

Derrick doubled over in a fit of helpless laughter, which at least gave the other two time to separate, convincingly playing the role of a couple who had gotten carried away and had just been discovered in an utterly embarrassing situation.

"But hey, I'm not judging!" he proclaimed, throwing his hands up in an exaggerated shrug. "What you do on your own time is your business. I'll meet you back outside."

* * *

"We'll never hear the end of this, but like I said before, you're a genius," Clyde remarked once the guard had left them alone. "Guess I'd better get back out there. You think there's _anyone_ at this restaurant that won't find out about us by the end of the day? We know him well enough; he's going to get a _lot_ of mileage out of this." Marjorie just laughed and clamped a hand to her forehead, knowing she would be fending off rumors and sly remarks all day.

"That was admittedly a last-minute plan, but at least it fooled Derrick," she admitted. "You really should get out of the costume right away, though. You're all..." Letting her voice trail off, she gave Clyde a cautious hug before returning to the dining area.

_Right. I'm all sweaty and flushed and my heart is racing a thousand beats a minute, which is a really bad situation to be in while wearing a spring-lock suit,_ the rookie officer thought as he began to undo the costume.

* * *

"I'll never underestimate you again, Deputy," Derrick said when Clyde had rejoined him on their rounds, once again dressed in the oversized uniform shirt. "You twisted little deviant, I never knew you had it in you! So was making out in the Fredbear costume your ideas or hers?"

"Sorry, I don't kiss and tell." His trainee put his hands on his hips, genuinely grinning for the first time since the tumultuous events of the past few weeks. This was _perfect._ The senior guard was already preoccupied with what he'd witnessed, and although Clyde suspected he would use it to his advantage and attempt to blackmail him, it would serve quite well as a distraction while Marjorie worked to exonerate their innocent coworker.


	11. Utterly Destroy You

_Author's Note: Trigger warning for alcohol use and humiliation, and again, there is some minor adult content in this chapter but it's only implied. (And those readers/reviewers who enjoyed adorably naive!Phone Guy in the last chapter might like this one.)_

* * *

"Hey, Scuzzbucket, hop in. We're going back in time!" Using the typical, less-than-tender way he and Jeremy addressed each other, Mike Schmidt pulled his battered station wagon into his friend's driveway late the following night, calling out through the open window.

"Sure thing, you old burnout. Just let me stash this ax inside." Jeremy motioned for him to wait a moment, rising from the porch steps where he had been strumming his favorite guitar and returning it to a stand he conveniently kept just inside his front door. "Sorry for the delay, but the humidity really warps 'em if you leave 'em out overnight," he explained once he dropped onto the vinyl bench seat of the wagon, feeling its frame noticeably lower on its worn shocks with the weight of its added passenger. He readjusted his trademark red bandanna and grinned; it had been far too long since he and Mike had gotten together and he realized how much he had missed aimlessly cruising around in that pathetic old car, even missed its perpetual smell of fast-food grease and the oil it burned at an astonishing rate. Most of all, he had missed Mike's company, and having somebody else who knew what it been like to have one's entire world shattered in just a single, ill-fated work week.

"Humidity? Yeah, funny you should mention that," Mike said wryly, smoothing a hand down his slightly mildewed uniform shirt as he turned the wagon back onto the dirt road, the cloud of dust it had kicked up faintly visible in his taillights. "The place I worked at? It's a total mold festival after only five years of being closed, and wait until you see how awful everything they dragged out of it looks. At least your restaurant escaped that fate."

"Only marginally," Jeremy reminded him. His workplace, marred by tragedy, had stood vacant for some time after his fateful week there, but as management could scarcely afford to let a newly-constructed building slide into disrepair while it languished unused, it eventually was placed on the real estate market. The entrepreneur who purchased it for a song had carved up the building's interior into a dimly-lit maze of storage units and sound-proofed practice spaces for local bands, and the last time Jeremy had tagged along to another group's jam session in one of the foam-lined cubicles, he'd been astonished to find virtually no traces of the building's previous purpose. The hallways where children had once run screaming with glee were now somber and poorly-lit, and when he had twisted the door handle to _that_ former party room, where _it _had happened, the experience had been anticlimactic.

_What should I have expected?_ he chided himself, recalling the way the space, standing open and not yet rented out at the time, had simply been...empty, stripped of its birthday banners and tables and chairs. A single foil star had still dangled from the ceiling, the sole survivor from a decorative mobile that had been hastily ripped down. _It's not like they would have preserved the site the way it was that day in 1987. Everyone was eager to forget that place. And if I only could, I'd do the same._

"So you said that what's left of those toy animatronics are on display at the spookhouse?" the former guard asked, watching Mike as he drove with one arm slung over the open window, his thinning hair fluttering wildly in the breeze under the brim of his ball cap. "Even, uh, _that one?"_

Mike's throat moved noticeably as he swallowed hard and reluctantly nodded, knowing exactly what Jeremy was referring to, but his friend was already grinning widely, hardly the reaction he had expected.

"Heh, so did I ever tell you _how_ they scrapped those animatronics?" He pulled his flannel shirt more tightly around himself, shivering in the cool night breeze. "Miller and I sorta had a hand in that."

"You're kidding! Now this I've gotta hear." Mike matched Jeremy's grin with one of his own, albeit a little wistfully at the mention of the lost mentor he had never met.

"Naw, it's a story best saved for another time, and right now, _this_ is what you've gotta hear," Jeremy said, pulling a tape from the widest pocket of the frayed denim vest he wore under his flannel shirt. "It's our band's latest demo, and I went to the trouble of recording it on a cassette tape since you're probably the last guy I know who's never upgraded to at least a CD player in his car."

As the twin assault of shrieking vocals and blistering guitar notes began emanating from the stereo, Mike inwardly thrilled at the sight of Jeremy reveling in some vintage-era headbanging, thoroughly enjoying his own form of music therapy that had seen him through his worst days. His ears were still ringing when the station wagon pulled up next to the horror attraction, and Jeremy hurriedly ducked lower in the seat, masked in the darkness as his friend's youthful boss bounded out to greet him just yards away.

"Hey, Guard-bro! You'll never get a load of the great news I've got for you tonight!" Randy cried, taking Mike's hands and whirling him around with unbridled enthusiasm. The security guard chuckled as his hat flew from his head, feeling relieved to see Randy had recovered his infectious zest for life.

"Uh, hopefully the good news is that your old man fixed the faulty ventilation system I told you about?" Mike asked hesitantly, dismayed somewhat when his boss's face fell.

"We're kinda still working on that one, to be honest," he sighed. "He says it's no ventilation error, and that I should ditch all this moldy stuff and start fresh, but I don't want to fall back on some lousy bedsheet ghosts like the ones in the park's funhouse." The corners of Randy's mouth curled up into a mysterious smile. "Besides, after what I found today, when it comes to coolness and total authenticity, you might say Fazbear's Fright has really leveled up. I'll explain it in the phone call."

* * *

The day after Marjorie had spoken to the police and presented the new evidence that already promised to change the entire direction of their investigation, Clyde stood next to Derrick in the dining area of the pizzeria, feeling reduced to a jittery mess as he stole a glance over the top of his clipboard at his assembled coworkers and managers from both restaurant locations. In preparation for the planned reopening of the satellite location, the security duo had been charged with giving a presentation outlining the many new policies and rules that they had helped management develop to prevent another tragedy as well as improve the company's safety record.

Derrick regarded his fellow officer, who clearly hadn't grown any more comfortable speaking in public since he had been coerced, two years before, into serving as the emcee for the grand unveiling of the then-new animatronic characters. _The kid's knees are practically knocking together over giving a little talk,_ he thought derisively. _Total security guard material, right?_

"Hey relax, Loverboy! Remember, just imagine the audience in their underwear and you'll lose those jangled nerves," he urged him in a hushed voice, leaning in close and peering down at his trainee's shirt collar. Clyde had arrived to work earlier that morning with the collar of his uniform shirt worn straight up, like a vampire's cowl, and Derrick had slyly observed him bringing a hand up to it frequently, no doubt assuring himself it remained in its unusual position. What he saw now brought a wicked grin to his face.

"Loverboy?" Clyde asked in an equally low yet amused tone. "I think I'll stick with 'Deputy' after all. Heh, but no thanks, I'd rather not picture our coworkers that way."

"I'll bet there's _one_ you wouldn't mind picturing that way," Derrick taunted, delighting when Clyde's face reddened and he shot him a warning glare. The exceedingly modest training coordinator may have initially appeared unfazed that his bizarre makeout session with Marjorie had been interrupted, but later during their shift he had seemingly had second thoughts, begging Derrick to at least keep quiet for her sake if not his own.

_Or at the _very_ least if you can't resist having a field day with this one, just don't mention the Fredbear suit,_ he'd pleaded, both of them well aware that if news of such a blatant safety violation reached management it would no doubt cost him his job. And thus Derrick had remained surprisingly silent, leaving Clyde perplexed when the night had ended without a single coworker so much as giving him a knowing look.

* * *

_The fateful day of the spring-lock accident, I vowed to do two things: return and utterly destroy the place that ruined me and and end you,_ Derrick thought maliciously as his trainee slid the first transparency onto an overhead projector. _I never said exactly _when _I'd do either, but today seems like an auspicious day to utterly destroy _you _in front of everyone. The restaurant can wait._

"Knock 'em dead, Sport!" he urged, giving his colleague a terrific clap on the back that knocked his ball cap askew and sent the collar of his oversized shirt flopping back down to its typical position.

Distracted by his anxiety, Clyde failed to notice the adjustment to his clothing, which had revealed a clearly visible and angry welt on the side of his neck. In his haste to extricate himself from the spring-lock suit the day before, he had accidentally set off one of the mechanisms, receiving a formidable blow from one of the solid steel post builts into the collar of the costume for his trouble. Though he had been intensely relieved that he had activated one of the more benign spring-locks in the suit, as most were cruelly sharp and far less forgiving, the area had began bruising almost immediately. Fearing someone might recognize he had been foolhardy enough to disobey his own advice and put on a decommissioned costume, he had scrambled to devise a way to hide the telltale mark, finally opting to turn up his shirt collar.

* * *

"So in conclusion, we are more committed than ever to protecting our valued workers and patrons alike, and remember to not only smile, but keep an eye out for others. A child's safety may depend on you," Clyde said, stepping away from the projector and returning his attention to the audience. He had only made it through the talk by keeping his eyes locked on the floor or his notes, but when he finally tried to gauge the audience's reaction, he incredulously discovered he had the undivided attention of the entire room.

_There, that hadn't been half-bad._ The dreaded presentation was now behind him, he would soon be headed off to the job he had long hoped for, he was still glowing from what had actually been his first kiss, Derrick was being strangely civil and best of all, Hermie would likely be freed within days.

"Are there any questions?" Derrick asked, having conspicuously stared at his fellow presenter's bruised neck the entire time, as had everyone else.

"I have one for Clyde." Nathan Faz's mouth curled into a mysterious smile. "Who's the lucky woman, you sly devil? She must be quite some girl!" Once someone had dared to voice aloud the question that had been on everyone's minds during the entire lecture, laughter erupted around the room in response to the first remotely mirthful incident the pizzeria had seen after three solid weeks of gripping tension.

His young officer's jaw dropped and he whirled on Derrick. "You told them after all?" he wailed, still not grasping what everyone could plainly see.

"I didn't say a word!" Derrick said adamantly, amused at Clyde's cluelessness and greatly enjoying the fallout from his mischief, which was only getting better by the minute. As a former spring-lock performer himself who was all too familiar with the exact location of every mechanism inside the costume, he had guessed the true cause of the bruising. _The clumsy fool should be thrilled he got off so light, considering what those things did to me,_ he fumed, infuriated that the rookie officer would nonchalantly put on a dangerous costume to impress his girlfriend.

Ready for the consummate moment of his plan, he clamped a hand to his mouth in mock surprise, pretending to be the last in the room to take notice of Clyde's condition, before leaning forward.

"I really didn't tell a soul, _you_ gave it away yourself," he whispered in his ear. "Now I see what you were trying to hide; that's a _huge_ love bite you've got there." When the other man just stared back at him blankly, he inwardly cursed. "You've got a massive hickey on your neck that you could practically see from space, Loverboy!" he hissed, slightly more audibly.

Clyde gulped and his hands flew to his shirt collar, pulling it closed, but the damage was already done and there was no sense in denying everybody hadn't already seen it. Inwardly panicking, he knew he couldn't reveal the real reason for the mark; it would put his entire career at stake! The officer-in-training busied himself gathering up the documents he and Derrick had prepared for the meeting, eager to make a hasty retreat.

"We want all the details, so c'mon, dish! And really, who is she?" Mitch, the manager of the satellite location, demanded jestfully. Seated next to him, Marjorie was the only one not at least cracking a smile, and she pushed back her chair, starting to rise to a stand.

_No._ Clyde was not about to allow her needlessly take the blame for this one and suffer the same teasing he was certain to endure until the others finally grew tired of their joke. Besides, as heavenly as their brief kiss had been, they weren't a couple and she didn't feel comfortable dating coworkers, as she had gently and tactfully reminded him the next morning.

"It's nobody you'd know." Suddenly finding his voice again, the rookie officer was relieved to see Marjorie sink back into her seat, her face a mask of confusion at his motives.

"He's right," Derrick abruptly cut in, startling Clyde with his sudden show of support. While Derrick expected the kid to quit in utter humiliation, he at least wanted to remain on good terms with Marjorie, should she see him in a new light after his romantic competition was out of the picture. "Since it's apparently okay to talk about this type of stuff at Fazbear Entertainment board meetings, let's just say we two guards caught a late movie at the drive-in last night-"

"And parked in the back row!" someone called out, causing Derrick to break into a wide grin. Clyde clutched his clipboard of notes to his chest, astonished at the wild tale that was playing out and yet unable to contest any of it without selling out Marjorie.

"Well, we moved there once he met some girl at the snack bar and invited her over to his car. I'm not really sure what happened after that; I stayed in the _front_ seat." He threw an arm over his trainee's shoulder, pretending to congratulate him, while Clyde took a sudden interest in the tiled floor. "I guess maybe I can't call you a kid anymore, huh?"

"Now that'll be enough," Faz said in warning, sensing his worker's discomfort. "Maybe it was my fault for veering off-topic in the first place, but unless anyone actually has any safety-related questions, we'd best adjourn this meeting. What my employees do when they're not on company time shouldn't be of concern to anyone else."

Clyde had already bolted from the room, destroyed just as Derrick had intended and unable to take any more. Trudging down the hall, he turned into the security office and slumped against the desk, pulling his knees to his chest and bowing his head low, trying to shut out the entire world.

* * *

"Hey, is there room for two more?" Marjorie knelt next to her friend, not used to seeing her coworker in such distress, while Derrick kept back at a distance, leaning casually against the far wall of the office as though he had little awareness of the trouble he'd caused. Clyde looked up and nodded weakly, so defeated he no longer even tried to hold his shirt collar closed. "And I know all too well what _that_ really is," she added, bringing a hand up to his injury and feeling bad when he winced despite her gentle touch. "You should have told me you suffered a spring-lock failure. _I_ should have never asked you to try on the suit."

"Failure?" Clyde shrugged hopelessly. "More like user error. I guess I got in over my head. Good thing these things were decommissioned; I'm losing my touch."

"And most of your common sense," added Derrick flatly from across the room before his tone softened. "Really though, I can tell you're sore at me right now but I was just trying to be helpful. You wanted to protect her but you clammed up, so I made you up a nice little alibi on the fly."

_"Nice?" _Clyde sputtered, incredulous. "Thanks to you, everyone, and I do mean _everyone,_ thinks I went all the way with someone that I just met in the back seat of a car with you practically cheering us on. Thanks for nothing!"

"Okay, so that would be more than a little out of character for you, but what was I supposed to do?" Derrick replied, irritation creeping into his voice. "Just be glad they bought the story and didn't figure out you really got slammed with a spring-lock when those things were supposed to be off-limits, because you've got to admit that's a whole new level of stupid. Besides, maybe they'll see you as more of an adult now." Beside him, Marjorie rolled her eyes in aggravation.

_How would doing something so reckless make me more of an adult? _Clyde thought scornfully as he touched a lighter to the cigarette that he barely remembered removing from the pack he kept in his pocket. _Losing your best friend when you're fifteen makes you grow up pretty fast, the last time I checked._

Dismayed to see her coworker falling back on his old vices, Marjorie interjected, breaking the silence.

"Come on, Derrick, that's hardly the case. You've confessed to - maybe even bragged about - having a few flings and I didn't see any remarkable change in _your_ maturity level." Her coworker fixed her with an amused nod of agreement, though his smirk faded when she spoke again. "Anyway, guys, I guess this is as good a time as any to say I've put in my two weeks' notice as of this morning. I'm a big believer in following your dreams, and I've been squirreling away my earnings for years. Last month I made the audition for dance school, so it's finally going to happen."

"Wow, so you're off to the big city," murmured Clyde in awe, poorly hiding his conflicted feelings. He was thrilled for Marjorie, as she had shared her long-term dreams with anyone who would listen, and though he knew this day would eventually come, her announcement was nothing short of bittersweet.

"You two aren't going to stay here forever, are you?" she implored the security duo. Derrick quickly replied, assuring her he would happily move on to a better job should the opportunity present itself, while Clyde simply shrugged.

"I dunno," he stammered when he finally realized she anticipated an answer. "I mean, I'm headed to the satellite location in two weeks, even if the security gig turned out to be a bit of a pay cut. But I've never really thought about jumping ship and working anywhere else, to be honest." He ran a hand through his feathered hair, as he tended to do when he was anxious. "I don't _have_ any other work skills to speak of, and most guys my age are now college grads or at least close to it, so how do I compete against that?" His voice trailed off.

"Still, Fazbear Entertainment is _toxic,"_ Marjorie asserted, and Derrick subtly brought a hand down to rest on his injured leg, nodding in silent agreement. "I've been here long enough to see that this place eats people alive, and just promise me you'll both get out while you still can."

Rising stiffly to his feet while considering his friend's advice, Clyde crushed out the stub of his cigarette in the ashtray on the desk, then looked ruefully down at the lighter in his hand.

"Y'know what?" He wrenched open the desk drawer and released the lighter, watching it fall into the drawer where its landing was cushioned by the stacks of envelopes and rubber bands and other office supplies, then shoved the drawer closed so forcefully the sturdy metal fan sitting atop the desk was left teetering on its base. "I quit. I-I don't mean I quit this place, at least anytime soon, but out of respect to someone else, I'm done lighting up." He shrugged at Derrick. "I shouldn't care about my reputation around here, anyway, because two more weeks and I'm gone."


	12. A-okay

_Author's Note: In the previous chapter, Derrick made several statements that engaging in physical intimacy somehow made one more mature. It was never the author's intention to imply this is true in any way, and the disclaimer "opinions expressed in this fanfiction do not necessarily reflect those of the author" definitely applies._

* * *

"Well, at least your kid boss isn't blowing his budget on the facade of this horror house," Jeremy remarked once he and Mike were alone, eyeing the cheap plywood panels leaning against the trailers, their wet paint still glistening in the sole overhead spotlight.

"Trust me, he's doing the best he can with what he has to work with," said Mike, dropping to his knees to study one of the panels that would eventually be bolted over a framework to hide the attraction's humble origins as a jumble of trailers. "His dad was far less than confident about this project from the start, so he's holding him to a pretty tight budget, I imagine to minimize his losses if it doesn't go over well."

"I wasn't knocking the craftsmanship by any means," Jeremy was quick to reassure him, walking along the line of painted panels, most of them featuring menacing animatronics. "Man, this is some amazing airbrush work. If his enterprise doesn't take off for whatever reason, he should give some serious thought to opening his own studio. He could do custom vans, guitars, you name it! Did he attend art school or is he self-taught?"

Mike's face fell. "He told me he took one year of art school, only to quit. I can't tell if it was to spite his father or because he lost faith in his chances of seeing it through. Maybe it was a little of both." His mind drifted to the conversation they'd had the day before, with Randy confessing he had drifted through a myriad of attempts to start his career and yet failed to find anything satisfying, always returning to his father's park as a place of refuge when his other plans fell through. His admission had hit a little too close to home, reminding Mike of himself at the same age and well beyond, minus the built-in safety net.

"Ugh, that's harsh," Jeremy said, recalling his family's lack of faith in his attempts to make it in the cutthroat music industry. They had only come around once he had diverted his efforts to a more practical career of repairing instruments, and even then had done little to disguise their disappointment until his small business had actually taken off.

"I wish he'd reconsider, though, because you have to get a load of _this,"_ Jeremy said with a low whistle of appreciation. Hurrying over, Mike's jaw dropped at the painting of a security guard, unmistakably modeled after himself, standing in heroic pose, a defiant grin on his face as he held one hand outstretched toward Freddy Fazbear as if he was blocking the character's approach. Behind him, two young children were depicted peering over his shoulder, smiling and cheering on their brave protector.

"He made you look positively badass, like some kind of comic book character!" Jeremy exclaimed, clapping Mike on the shoulder. "Man, I wouldn't be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little envious by this point. This job's going to be downright sweet for you."

Mike chuckled. "Yeah, at least until the guests find out there aren't any real animatronics in there and that the guy sitting in the fake security office is really just some middle-aged chump in a moldy old work shirt watching the cameras. What a ripoff, right?"

* * *

"For crying out loud, can't anyone grow up around here?" Clyde exclaimed in pure annoyance as he arrived with Derrick at the security office for his last day of training only to find their shared desk strewn with multiple small foil packets, as well as copies of the local drive-in's schedule that had been clipped from the newspaper. "What a nice parting gift from all my coworkers," he sighed, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "but I think some people forget this is a _children's_ establishment." Reaching out an arm to sweep the lot into the wastebasket, he halted when Derrick protested, wisecracking about not being wasteful.

"Fine, help yourself. Despite what everybody thinks, it's not like I really have any use for them," the rookie officer frankly admitted, watching Derrick incredulously as he stuffed the pockets of the jacket he'd slung over the desk chair. "Gee, how many do you _need? _On second thought, don't answer that." He threw his hands up and chuckled unconvincingly, trying to prove his spirits hadn't been broken forever, only to notice his mentor looked deeply unsettled for a change.

"So get this," Derrick said pensively, dropping to the chair and twirling one of the packets between his fingers as if he was studying it in great detail. "That squad car that's parked out front? Those are hardly an uncommon sight around here lately thanks to recent events, but the police chief's been talking to Faz all morning and from what I managed to overhear, they're not so sure old Hermie's their man anymore." He shook his head in disbelief, his long strands of dark hair swaying beneath his ball cap and revealing the faint purple blotches that marred his skin on the rare occasions he grew highly agitated.

"Really?" asked Clyde, feigning surprise. "What do you think made them change their tune?" Before dawn he had met Marjorie at the local donut shop, where she had told him of the police chief's plans to interview their manager about Hermie a second time, at least until the bus that would take her to her first semester of dance school and a new chapter in her life had pulled up outside the restaurant, forcing them to exchange a hasty farewell.

"Beats me, and honestly, even if he walks, it's not like he'd ever darken the doorstep of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza ever again," Derrick said, rubbing the mottled skin on his arms. "I wouldn't blame him for holding an enormous grudge against this place and everyone who has ever worked here; after all, you were the only nutjob who ever entertained the idea he might be innocent. But you realize that this will only put the suspicion back on us?"

* * *

"I've got to admit, until you called I never thought I'd see these cretins again," Jeremy said, lifting the eyeless headpiece of BB, his defunct restaurant's cheerful balloon vendor. "At least this little guy was mostly a harmless nuisance once I got used to him." He let the facemask fall back into the box, remembering the childish laugh of the diminutive character as it had echoed through the ventilation ducts, indicating the persistent animatronic had once again mistaken him for a guest in need of a free balloon and was trying to reach his security office by any route possible.

"And then there's _you," _he continued, gingerly turning over the empty shell that had been part of the restaurant's remade Foxy character, who had been affectionately renamed "Mangle" by his fellow workers. Stripped of its fearsome outer row of formidably sharp teeth and removed from the endoskeleton machinery that had powered the character, Mangle's mask looked as innocuous as any of the others, no more frightening than one might expect to find an anthropomorphic fox character with ruby-red lips, rosy cheeks and a bright pink snout.

"I'm still shocked those were kept this long," Mike said cautiously, watching Jeremy from his seat at the desk and quietly wondering if he had made the right decision to invite his friend along on what was only his second shift. "I guess Randy's planning on moving them into the main attraction eventually, since it hardly makes sense to stow them in the pseudo-office where hardly anybody is going to notice them." His brow furrowed as he cycled through the various camera views on the wall-mounted monitor. "Then again, he insisted he found something far better, though I don't see any sign of whatever that could be."

"Hey, Germ, you okay?" Mike's voice trailed off uncertainly as he noticed his friend's fixed gaze on the vulpine facemask.

_"You're going to be okay, Jeremy!" _

_Clyde's statement had come across as more of a plea than reassurance. As shock set in, Jeremy had collapsed to the ground, one hand clutching at the paper cloth covering the nearest party table, sending uneaten plates of cake and ice cream to spatter the floor around him. In any other circumstance it would have been pure slapstick hilarity, but the skeleton crew of workers left to cover what was to be the concept restaurant's final birthday party had just witnessed nothing but abject horror. The venue's only remaining security guard, pulling a double shift, had fallen victim to their worst nightmares, a malfunctioning animatronic's horrifically mistaken attempt to protect the young party guests from would-be predators._

_Jeremy only vaguely remembered the stack of napkins, printed up in the restaurant's energetic "Let's Party!" slogan in bright red ink, being clamped to his forehead and promptly being soaked through while Clyde had fumbled with the cordless phone he toted around more often than not, summoning an ambulance._

_"You're right, I'll be a-okay," Jeremy had assured them, even flashing his friend a thumbs-up seconds before everything had gone dark._

_Let's Party._

_He had _not_ been a-okay, at least for a long time._

"I'm beyond okay," Jeremy said, a triumphant grin spreading across his face. "And we're cool, Mangle. It wasn't your fault anyway." He reverently set the headpiece down in the box amongst the remnants of its comrades.

* * *

_1984_

"You're seriously closing the _flagship_ location instead of that sumphole of a satellite?" Derrick sputtered, confronting Nathan Faz about the rumors that had been making the rounds in recent days.

"I'm no happier than you are about it, but I'm afraid it has to be done, and I might add that it was hardly my decision alone," his manager replied sternly, leaning forward in his desk and rubbing his temples in exhaustion before regarding the security guard standing before him. "This restaurant may have once been the crown jewel in our chain, but we've tried hard for two years to turn around its reputation to no avail and we can hardly afford to hemorrhage money forever. Maybe I shouldn't blame our guests for the decline in patronage; outside of morbid curiosity it's only human nature to avoid places that were the site of tragedy." He watched Derrick's hands curl into white-knuckled fists as he no doubt contemplated the loss of his workplace.

"For that matter, sometimes they downright bulldoze a place that just can't lose the stain of its past, but I can assure you that won't be the case here. We'll at least keep this building as a warehouse for the old animatronics while our team works on the new concept."

Derrick set his mouth in a straight line at the mention of the concept restaurant the company's design crew was supposedly working on. An ambitious project beyond the scope of anything Fazbear Entertainment had undertaken before, it would be years in development and promised to feature an entirely new generation of animatronics, a revamped menu, and a fresh take on children's entertainment.

...None of which really mattered if it meant he would be out of work in the interim, Derrick thought bitterly. "Well, if we're going to be down to one restaurant, I guess I'll put in a bid to work night shift security over there," he said aloud, his jaw dropping when Faz shook his head.

"As much as we appreciate your dedication over the past five years, we've come to a decision, and Clyde's going to stay on the job," he admitted, smiling apologetically. "He runs a pretty tight ship over there and I'm a firm believer in not fixing things that aren't broken, so to speak."

"What about things that _are_ broken?" Derrick growled, leaning forward on the desk supported by both arms. "I've been stuck working night shift for the last two years because the animatronics here have gone completely out of control once the lights go out, but that kid gets to turn the key in the lock every night after closing and head home!"

Faz remained calm in the face of his employee's outburst. "Exactly. The satellite doesn't even require a night guard, and that actually _was_ a factor behind the decision to close this location versus the satellite," he explained patiently. "It's simple economics. Don't tell him I said this, but the characters at his restaurant really are as docile as their caretaker. I still haven't figured out why the band here gets so aggressive once the guests leave." His shoulders fell as he looked down at the desk he would soon be vacating. "Considering how advanced their A.I. is, maybe they really were affected by seeing something terrible the night those kids went missing."

He put a hand on Derrick's shoulder. "You're not the only one left in a lurch by this. It's still going to be at least another two, maybe three years before the concept's truly ready to launch, and I'll need to pick up a day job myself during that time." He cleared his throat, already imagining himself combing through help-wanted advertisements in the newspaper. "If you need me to put in a good word for you when you're applying for work, I'll be happy to do so, and we wouldn't mind having a seasoned veteran like you return once the new restaurant is operational."


End file.
